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World J Radiol. Apr 28, 2021; 13(4): 94-101
Published online Apr 28, 2021. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v13.i4.94
Cardio-thoracic imaging and COVID-19 in the pediatric population: A narrative review
Paolo Ferrero, Isabelle Piazza
Paolo Ferrero, ACHD Unit–Pediatric and Adult Congenital Heart Centre, IRCCS-Policlinico San Donato, San Donato Milanese 20097, Milan, Italy
Isabelle Piazza, Department of Emergency Medicine, ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII, Bergamo 24127, Italy
Author contributions: Ferrero P wrote the paper; Piazza I performed and collected the data.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Paolo Ferrero, FESC, MD, ACHD Unit–Pediatric and Adult Congenital Heart Centre, IRCCS-Policlinico San Donato, Via Morandi 30, San Donato Milanese 20097, Milan, Italy. ferrerop41@gmail.com
Received: January 21, 2021
Peer-review started: January 21, 2021
First decision: February 12, 2021
Revised: February 19, 2021
Accepted: April 13, 2021
Article in press: April 13, 2021
Published online: April 28, 2021
Processing time: 90 Days and 13.9 Hours
Abstract

Worldwide experience about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemics suggests that symptomatic disease is significantly less frequent in the pediatric age range. Nevertheless, multi-system inflammatory syndrome has been consistently reported in children and has been associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 exposure. In this paper we give an overview of the multimodality chest imaging of pediatric patients with suspected COVID-19, focusing on relevant differences with adults.

Keywords: COVID-19; Radiology; Imaging; Chest; Pediatric; SARS-CoV-2

Core Tip: Although the pattern of lung involvement of coronavirus disease 2019 in children reproduces the pathology described in the general population, traditional imaging modalities have several limitations in this age group. Specific and unique findings are mainly related to the occurrence of multi-system inflammatory syndrome which is a peculiar complication reproducibly reported in the pediatric population. This syndrome is characterized by occurrence of atypical symptoms as compared with presentation in adult and multimodality imaging approach has to be contemplated.