European radiology
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The global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has upended the world with over 6.6 million infections and over 391,000 deaths worldwide. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay is the preferred method of diagnosis of COVID-19 infection. ⋯ We review important aspects of CT in COVID-19 infection from the justification of its use to specific scan protocols for optimizing radiation dose and diagnostic information. Key Points• Chest CT provides useful information in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 pneumonia.• When indicated, chest CT in most patients with COVID-19 pneumonia must be performed with non-contrast, low-dose protocol.• Although chest CT has high sensitivity for diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia, CT findings are non-specific and overlap with other viral infections including influenza and H1N1.
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Observational Study
Longitudinal study of interventional radiology activity in a large metropolitan Italian tertiary care hospital: how the COVID-19 pandemic emergency has changed our activity.
To retrospectively analyze interventional radiology (IR) activity changes in the COVID-19 era and to describe how to safely and effectively reorganize IR activity. ⋯ • Coronavirus disease pandemic determined a reduction of interventional radiology activity as compared to the same period of the previous year. • Interventional radiology procedures for life-threatening conditions and non-deferrable oncologic treatments were prioritized as opposed to elective procedures. • Strict adoption of safe procedures allowed us to have until now no incidents of cross-infection of non-infected from infected patients and no evidence of COVID-19 infection of HCWs in the IR service.
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To assess sensitivity/specificity of CT vs RT-PCR for the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia in a prospective Italian cohort of symptomatic patients during the outbreak peak. ⋯ • During the epidemic peak, CT showed high positive predictive value and sensitivity for COVID-19 pneumonia when compared with RT-PCR. • Blood tests were significantly associated with RT-PCR and CT classes.
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To analyze the performance of radiological assessment categories and quantitative computational analysis of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps using variant machine learning algorithms to differentiate clinically significant versus insignificant prostate cancer (PCa). ⋯ • Quantitative imaging features differ between normal and malignant tissue of the peripheral zone in prostate cancer. • Radiomic feature analysis of clinical routine multiparametric MRI has the potential to improve the stratification of clinically significant versus insignificant prostate cancer lesions in the peripheral zone. • Certain combinations of standard multiparametric MRI reporting and assessment categories with feature subsets and machine learning algorithms reduced the diagnostic performance over standard clinical assessment categories alone.
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Smoking is a major risk factor for both cardiovascular disease (CVD) and lung cancer. Aortic valve calcification (AVC) and coronary artery calcification (CAC) are both due to atherosclerotic disease. We aim to investigate whether AVC on low-dose CT (LDCT) predicts death from CVD in smokers beyond that provided by CAC. ⋯ • Aortic valve calcification (AVC) and coronary artery calcification (CAC) are both due to atherosclerotic disease. The prevalence of AVC in lung cancer screening cohort significantly increased with the increasing severity of CAC. • CAC and AVC were significant predictors of cardiovascular disease (CVD) death when considered alone. Participants who underwent lung cancer screening with AVC > 0 and CAC ≥ 4 had more than a 2-fold increased risk of CVD death than the group with AVC = 0 and CAC < 4, when adjusted for other risk factors.