CT chest of COVID-19 patients: what should a radiologist know?

BACKGROUND: The aim of current work is to review the CT findings of COVID-19 in a pictorial study to help the radiologists to be familiar to imaging findings of COVID-19. MAIN BODY: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic highly infectious disease which is first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and then had its outbreak leads to a global public health emergency. Real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of viral nucleic acid is considered as the reference standard for COVID-19 diagnosis; however, recent studies showed the importance of CT chest in the diagnosis of COVID-19 with high sensitivity. The CT hallmarks of COVID-19 were bilateral peripheral ground-glass opacities, consolidation with the advance of the disease more consolidation is there with linear opacities and crazy-paving pattern as well as halo and reverse halo sign. CONCLUSION: Early identification of COVID-19 cases is vital. The radiologist should be familiar with the possible findings. Further future studies with pathological correlation will help for more understanding of the imaging findings and its value in assessing of prognosis.