Pulmonary measles disease: old and new imaging tools.
Radiol Med
; 123(12): 935-943, 2018 Dec.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30062499
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Measles virus can cause lower respiratory tract infection, so that chest radiography is necessary to investigate lung involvement in patients with respiratory distress.PURPOSE:
To assess measles pneumonia imaging during the measles outbreak occurred in 2016-2017 in Italy. MATERIAL ANDMETHODS:
We retrospectively observed adult patients with a serological diagnosis of measles, who underwent chest-X rays for suspected pneumonia. If a normal radiography resulted, the patient underwent unenhanced CT. A CT post processing software package was used for an additional quantitative lung and airway involvement analysis .RESULTS:
Among 290 patients affected by measles, 150 underwent chest-X ray. Traditional imaging allowed the pneumonia diagnosis in 114 patients (76%). The most frequent abnormality at chest X-rays was bronchial wall thickening, observed in 88.5% of the cases; radiological findings are faint in the 25% of the cases (29/114 patients). In nine subjects with a normal chest X-ray, unenhanced CT with a quantitative analysis was performed, and depicted features consistent with constrictive bronchiolitis.CONCLUSION:
Measles may produce bronchiolitis and pneumonia. In the cases in which involvement of pulmonary parenchyma is not sufficient to result in radiological abnormalities, CT used with a dedicated postprocessing software package, provides an accurate lungs and airways analysis, also determining the percentage of lung involvement.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
/
Measles
Type of study:
Observational_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
En
Journal:
Radiol Med
Year:
2018
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italy