Introduction:

COVID-19 pandemic has required a rapid-response capacity of the imaging services.

Objective:

To offer a reference regarding COVID-19 lesions in lungs and thorax based on computed tomography (CT) scan and radiographic image.

Method:

A narrative review was carried out at the General Teaching Hospital “Dr. Agostinho Neto” from June to October 2020, through the following databases (Pubmed/Medline, Science Direct y SciELO). Google scholar was the search engine used in the research, with the following keywords and links: COVID-19 AND imaging; SARS-CoV-2 AND radiography; 2019-nCOV AND Computed tomography; SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, and the equivalent terms in Spanish.

Results:

The most frequent findings in lung CT scan were lung ground-glass opacities (53%-100%), with association to pulmonary consolidation (27%-72%) and interstitial thickening with a cobblestone pattern (crazy paving) (19%). Lung radiographic images are similar to the images obtained via computed tomography.

Conclusions:

These diagnostic tools are useful to identify lung lesions caused by COVID-19. Ground-glass opacity in combination with pulmonary consolidations is the most common imaging finding. The images should be interpreted taking into account the clinical manifestations and the epidemiologic context in which SARS-CoV-2 remains a risk of infection. However, several prognostic scales based on imaging have been proposed that still need to be validated.

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