An Incidental Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Pneumonia With Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. The most common clinical findings related to COVID-19 are fever and cough, with the proportion of patients developing interstitial pneumonia. Other symptoms include dyspnea, expectoration, headache, anosmia, ageusia, myalgia and malaise. To date, the diagnostic criteria for COVID-19 include nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs. Computed tomography (CT) scans of the thorax showing signs of interstitial pneumonia are important in the management of respiratory disease and in the evaluation of lung involvement. In the literature, there are few cases of COVID-19 pneumonia diagnosis made using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In our report, we describe a case of accidental detection of findings related to interstitial pneumonia in a patient who underwent abdominal MRI for other clinical reasons. A 71-year-old woman was referred to our department for an MRI scan of the abdomen as her oncological follow-up. She was asymptomatic at the time of the examination and had passed the triage carried out on all the patients prior to diagnostic tests during the COVID-19 pandemic. The images acquired in the upper abdomen showed the presence of areas of altered signal intensity involving asymmetrically both pulmonary lower lobes, with a patchy appearance and a preferential peripheral subpleural distribution. We considered these features as highly suspicious for COVID-19 pneumonia. The nasopharyngeal swab later confirmed the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. There are limited reports about MRI features of COVID-19 pneumonia, considering that high-resolution chest CT is the imaging technique of choice to diagnose pneumonia. Nevertheless, this clinical case confirmed that it is possible to detect MRI signs suggestive of COVID-19 pneumonia. The imaging features described could help in the evaluation of the lung parenchyma to assess the presence of signs suggestive of COVID-19 pneumonia, especially in asymptomatic patients during the pandemic phase of the disease.