Chest X-ray is the first imaging method to diagnose COVID-19 coronavirus infection. If the clinical suspicion is high and the PCR or/and chest X-ray is normal, a chest CT is indicated. There is also a potential contamination of CT scanners, as there may be insufficient time in an already overworked system to provide thorough repeated deep cleaning of machines between CT examinations. More importantly potential infection of suspected COVID 19 patients who are negative for infection at the time of scanning.
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Bernheim, A., Mei, X., Huang, M., Yang, Y., Fayad, Z.A., Zhang, N., Diao, K., Lin, B., Zhu, X., Li, K. and Li, S., 2020. Chest CT findings in coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19): relationship to duration of infection. Radiology, p.200463.
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The sensitivity of CT is probably not better than PCR assays, especially in the early days of infection (around 60-90% according to the literature), which means that if the clinical suspicion is high, PCR is negative and CT is negative the patient can still have the disease. On the other hand, asymptomatic patients undergoing imaging for other reasons may have signs of COVID-19 pneumonia and should be managed accordingly.
chest CT has a high sensitivity for diagnosis of COVID-19. Chest CT may be considered as a primary tool for the current COVID-19 detection in epidemic areas. Article Correlation of Chest CT and RT-PCR Testing for Coronavirus D...
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