Open AccessImaging of abdominal complications of COVID-19 infection
Author(s) -
Damiano Caruso,
Marta Zerunian,
Francesco Pucciarelli,
Elena Lucertini,
Benedetta Bracci,
Tiziano Polidori,
Gisella Guido,
Michela Polici,
Carlotta Rucci,
Elsa Iannicelli,
Andrea Laghi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
bjr|open
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2513-9878
DOI - 10.1259/bjro.20200052
Subject(s) - medicine , abdominal pain , asymptomatic , pneumonia , vomiting , abdomen , gastroenterology , radiology
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory syndrome caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) first described in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China in the last months of 2019 and then declared as a pandemic. Typical symptoms are represented by fever, cough, dyspnea and fatigue, but SARS-CoV-2 infection can also cause gastrointestinal symptoms (vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite) or be totally asymptomatic. As reported in literature, many patients with COVID-19 pneumonia had a secondary abdominal involvement (bowel, pancreas, gallbladder, spleen, liver, kidneys), confirmed by laboratory tests and also by radiological features. Usually the diagnosis of COVID-19 is suspected and then confirmed by real-time reverse-transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), after the examination of the lung bases of patients, admitted to the emergency department with abdominal symptoms and signs, who underwent abdominal-CT. The aim of this review is to describe the typical and atypical abdominal imaging findings in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection reported since now in literature.