Chest CT scan finds coronavirus pneumonia in lung of healthy woman, 30, who had no symptoms of disease
A CHEST scan found coronavirus pneumonia in the lungs of a healthy 30-year-old woman with no symptoms of the disease.
The woman went to an imaging department and asked to have a CT scan after a relative contracted the virus and died.
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A CT scan would not normally be conducted simply because someone with no symptoms requested one, but in this case doctors agreed to make an exception.
Once they performed the scan, doctors could see patches resembling frosted glass - or fluid, which is commonly seen in the lungs of advanced coronavirus patients.
Within two days, she had been admitted to hospital with a diagnosed case of the virus.
Her scan was shared on Australian medical website Radiopaedia.org by Iranian radiologist Dr Barham Rasuli.
Speaking to ABC News, Dr Rasuli said: "She insisted on taking a CT scan because she was very worried.
"Maybe this case in Australia would not have taken a CT scan, despite her insisting.
"The physician saw her worry about the person who died and we just did the CT scan to relieve her mind."
The scan is one of dozens of CTs and x-rays that have been shared on the website since the coronavirus pandemic got underway.
Radiologists around the world have been studying the images as part of ongoing efforts to understand the disease and its effects on the body.
One CT scan shows Covid-19 pneumonia on the lungs of a Swedish woman who attended a routine scan as part of a follow-up to cancer treatment.
One x-ray shows Covid-19 pneumonia on the lungs of an 18-month-old boy from Italy.
The boy received treatment and recovered after 10 days.
Dr Andrew Dixon, a radiologist at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and one of the directors of Radiopaedia, spoke to ABC about the value for doctors of sharing their findings online.
"It's something that's being increasingly recognised around the world that people can have COVID-19 changes in their lungs and be asymptomatic," he said.
"This is something that's really important for health care professionals and radiologists to be aware of, because we may incidentally find cases of pneumonia on the scans that we're performing for other reasons.
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"For example, patients with abdominal pain or having a cancerous staging scan."
Efforts continue around the world to study and learn how to treat Covid-19, which has infected over 2.2million people and killed at least 154,000 globally since breaking out in December.
