The Clinical Utility of Molecular Imaging in COVID-19: An Update

Overview

Journal Semin Nucl Med

Specialty Nuclear Medicine

Date 2022 Oct 15

PMID 36243572

Authors

Ahmed Elsakka

Randy Yeh

Jeeban Das

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The novel pathogen severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first discovered in Wuhan, China in late 2019 with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) declared a global pandemic in March 2020. Primarily involving the lungs, conventional imaging with chest radiography and CT can play a complementary role to RT-PCR in the initial diagnosis, and also in follow up of select patients. As a broader understanding of the multi-systemic nature of COVID-19 has evolved, a potential role for molecular imaging has developed, that may detect functional changes in advance of standard cross-sectional imaging. In this review, we highlight the evolving role of molecular imaging such as fluorine-18 (F) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) with PET/CT and PET/MRI in the evaluation of both pulmonary and extra-pulmonary COVID-19, ventilation and perfusion scan with SPECT/CT for thromboembolic disease, long term follow-up of COVID-19 infection, and COVID-19 vaccine-related complications.

Citing Articles

EANM/SNMMI guideline/procedure standard for [F]FDG hybrid PET use in infection and inflammation in adults v2.0.

Abikhzer G, Treglia G, Pelletier-Galarneau M, Buscombe J, Chiti A, Dibble E Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2024; 52(2):510-538.

PMID: 39387894 PMC: 11732780. DOI: 10.1007/s00259-024-06915-3.

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