Can autofluorescence and fluorescence imaging be useful in fight with COVID-19 pandemia?

The entire medical world gathers information related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its spread analysis, disease characteristics, morbidity and mortality statistics, as well as factors limiting and promoting infection and severe course, and above all potential treatment options. Scientific research is being carried out on a large scale on methods of early detection of COVID-19 infection, including imaging methods such as computed tomography or ultrasound imaging. The importance of imaging methods is increasingly emphasized in the literature as sensitive and specific, often with greater clinical utility than mass-applied serological tests. Especially in large urban agglomerations such as Silesia, the wide availability of these imaging methods as screening methods in the clinical assessment of potentially infectious patients seems to be important. The literature on the COVID-19 epidemic emphasizes the significant role of integrated diagnostic methods including basic science as well as radiological and endoscopic imaging methods in the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection and its possible complications. The study presents potential possibilities of using the phenomena of autofuorescence and fluorescence in supporting the diagnosis of patients with suspected COVID-19 infection. The study presents preliminary results of case studies of patients suspected of being infected with COVID-19, and shows the multidimensional application of fluorescent phenomena in supporting diagnostics. One of the main tools used in the study is autofluorescent bronchoscopy as a method that, in synchronization with high resolution tomography analysis, significantly facilitates obtaining representative material for RT-PCR. The study also showed the potential for assessing fluorescent material under fluorescence microscopy, which can significantly facilitate diagnostics in the future and speed up existing screening tests to complement genetic diagnostics.