الفهرس 
COVID-19 infection in pediatric age groupOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Worldwide, in pediatric age pneumonia was a significant cause of death. After COVID-19 pandemic, many cases were reported as COVID-19 pneumonia in pediatric age group. In contrast to adults, most of the infected children appeared to have milder disease course and had better outcomes. Early diagnosis reduced the spread of infection and reduced disease morbidity and mortality rates.
COVID-19 pneumonia was common in pediatric age group and had a variety of presentations. So we were in need to early detect COVID-19 pneumonia infection in pediatrics and to be familiar with characteristic CT chest findings.
Early manifestation of the disease vary and should be differentiated from other common disease in the children, as throat swap was a challenge in children and there were many false negative results, so CT scanning was essential in the diagnosis of the disease and it was the modality of choice in the diagnosis.
The main objective of our study was to be aware of CT imaging features of COVID-19 pneumonia in pediatric population. The early CT findings of COVID-19 pneumonia mainly manifested by GGO, interstitial changes and consolidative patches which occurred in the severe type.
CT was of a great significance to help in clinical classification and follow up and observation after treatment.
Our study included 70 patients (36females and 34 males) with ages ranging from 1to 18years.Cases presented with fever (54.29%), cough (45.71%) and fatigue (21.43%).
Summary and Conclusion
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In our study, most cases were presented with bilateral involvement in about (60%), while unilateral involvement represented (40%).
In our study, GGO which was detected in (64.3%) was more common than consolidation which was observed in (50%).
Regarding to other CT patterns of COVID -19 pneumonia, we found that crazy paving, reversed halo, and septal thickening were detected in a few cases.
Our study detected that peripheral and mixed (central &peripheral) distributions were the commonest.
In our study, lower lobe predilection was more common than other lobes representing about (87.1%).
In our study the CTSS of the studied cases showed that the mild score was the most common represented by (57.41%), followed by moderate score (27.14%), while sever CTSS was the least detected in (15.71%).
In our study, we found that pleural effusion, mediastinal lymphadenopathy were detected in a few cases, while pericarditis wasn’t detected.
In our study, we found that cystic didn’t show significant relation with CT-SS.
In summary, we found that chest CT findings in COVID-19 pneumonia in children included GGO, consolidation lesions mostly subpleural distribution.
The characteristic CT findings mentioned above were matching with the typical findings published in the Radiological Society of North America’s expert consensus statement on reporting chest CT findings in COVID-19, included peripheral and bilateral ground-glass opacities, a crazy paving pattern, and a reverse halo sign. Recognition of these patterns helped us to
Summary and Conclusion
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differentiate COVID-19 pneumonia from other diseases such as a lobar pneumonia, which mostly appeared as consolidation more than ground-glass opacity and was mostly confined to one lobe.
In conclusion, there was an increasing need to early detect COVID-19 pneumonia infection in pediatric age group, so MDCT scanning was an important diagnostic method which gave early assessment of lesions in the lung.
Limitations were due the number of cases, the timing was limited and some information was missing in patients’ medical records.
In a limited number of cases, superimposed viral and bacterial infection may mimic the clinical picture of COVID-19 misleading the clinician. However, the only infection that may simulate the COVID-19 epidemic is seasonal influenza.