Use of Chest CT in Combination with Negative RT-PCR Assay for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus but High Clinical Suspicion
Peikai Huang*, Tianzhu Liu*, Lesheng Huang, Hailong Liu, Ming Lei, Wangdong Xu, Xiaolu Hu, Jun Chen, Bo Liu
* P.H. and T.L. contributed equally to this work.
Published Online:Feb 12 2020https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2020200330
A 36-year-old man presented to the hospital with a 2-day history of fever, sore throat, and fatigue 5 days after visiting Wuhan, China. His temperature on admission was 37.8°C (100.04°F). Pulmonary auscultation was normal. Laboratory studies showed a normal white blood cell count (4.6 × 109/L) with a differential count of 53.1% neutrophils. The blood procalcitonin level was normal. Chest CT showed multiple peripheral ground-glass opacities in both lungs with more involvement of the left upper lobe, lingular segment (Figure a–c). At admission, the real-time fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay of the sputum was negative for the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) nucleic acid.