COVID-19

The Authors of this preprint propose a survival probability calculator based on the presentation of 5'233 COVID-19 patients. Thia tool may help in critical decision support

In this meta-analysis, including 2'389 COVID-19 patients from 13 studies, the authors report that cardiac injury is associated with mortality, need for ICU care, and severity of disease

The authors of this article analyse examples from the current literature on CT diagnosis of COVID-19 to illustrate how underlying factors such as study design and study population characteristics affect the results and their meaning.

This consensus statement addresses imaging of COVID-19 children. The publication includes recommendations on the use of radiographs and CT in the diagnostic work up of paediatric patients and discusses the role of structured reporting for both plain film and CT.

Authors conducted two serial point-prevalence surveys, 1 week apart, in about 89 residents of a nursing home facility in the Washington state in the US. Twenty-three days after the first positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR resident at this nursing facility, 57 of 89 residents (64%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. More than half of residents with positive test results were asymptomatic at the time of testing (but developed symptoms lager in 89%) and most likely contributed to transmission.

In this case series in france, the authors have seen among the 107 first consecutive confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted in ICU for pneumonia, an unexpected high number of pulmonary embolism (i.e. 22 patients, 20.6%) during their stay. This number was twice as high as compared to a control period or compared to influenza cases. More data is needed to evaluate whether Covid-19 patients are at increased risk for pulmonary embolism and whether heparin prophylaxis regimen should be adapted.

The authors demonstrate in 3 Covid-19 autopsy cases the endothelial cell involvement across vascular beds of different organs. They found evidence of direct viral infection of the endothelial cell and diffuse endothelial inflammation, i.e. endotheliitis, which could explain the systemic impaired microcirculatory function in different vascular beds and their clinical sequelae in patients with COVID-19.

Over 70% of the population of Vo, the town with the first COVID-19 death in Northern Italy, was tested before and after the lockdown. The prevalence was 2.6% and 1.2%, respectively. 43% of confirmed cases were asymptomatic and most new infections in the second survey were infected in the community before the lockdown or from asymptomatic infections in the same household.

Chest x-rays were normal in nearly 60% and normal or mildly abnormal in nearly 90% of patients presenting to the emergency department with symptomatic (and later confirmed) COVID-19. Frequent findings on abnormal chest x-rays were interstitial and/or multifocal changes in the lower lobes.

CT can play an important part in the diagnostic work-up of patients with COVID-19 and a lot of attention was given to instances where CT outpaced RT-PCR diagnosis of COVID-19. This short communication provides on an overview of published data on the opposite: instances where CT was normal in patients with confirmed COVID-19.