Low-dose computed tomography in COVID-19: systematic review

Abstract

Objective. To systematize data on the appropriateness and effectiveness of LDCT in the diagnosis of lung lesions in COVID-19.
 Materials and methods. Analysis of relevant national and foreign literature sources in scientific libraries eLIBRARY, PubMed by queries "low dose computed tomography COVID-19", "low dose computed tomography COVID-19" published between 2020 and 2022. Publications were included in the review after assessing the relevance to the review topic by title and abstract analysis. The references were also analyzed to identify articles omitted during the search that might meet the inclusion criteria.
 Results. Studies published literature summarized the current data on the imaging of COVID-19 lung lesions and the use of CT scans and identified possible options for reducing the effective dose.
 Conclusion. Ways to reduce radiation exposure during chest CT and preserve high quality of diagnostic images, likely sufficient for reliable detection of COVID-19 signs are presented. Further study of LDCT application from the side of development of a universally applicable protocol with assessment of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of coronavirus pneumonia is required.