European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

CT FINDINGS OF COVID-19 VS TUBERCULOSIS: FINDING AN ANSWER TO DIAGNOSTIC DILEMMA IN INDIAN SETTING

Dr. Abhinav Aggarwal*

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of 2020 the world has been gripped by the pandemic caused by the Novel-coronavirus aka COVID-19.[1] Although the virus is supposed to have zoonotic origin widespread and fast human-to-human transmission has lead to a large number of cases worldwide resulting in thousands of deaths.[2] The common presenting symptoms include fever, cough, dysponea, headache, muscle soreness and fatigue.[3] Most of these symptoms are non-specific warranting need for imaging and laboratory investigations to confirm the diagnosis.[4,5] An incubation period of 1-14 days has been observed.[3,4,5] Since the outbreak of disease multiple studies have reported the imaging features on chest radiographs and computed tomography (CT) of chest. These include consolidation, bilateral & peripheral disease, greater total lung involvement, linear opacities, crazy paving pattern and reverse halo sign.[2,6] A lot of these imaging features are separately seen in various infective pulmonary pathologies resulting in diagnostic dilemma.

Keywords: COVID-19, coronavirus, tuberculosis, CT.