Differential diagnoses of acute ground-glass opacity in chest computed tomography: pictorial essay
Marina Justi Rosa de Matos, Marcela Emer Egypto Rosa, Vanessa Mizubuti Brito, Lucas Tadashi Wada Amaral, Gabriel Laverdi Beraldo, Eduardo Kaiser Ururahy Nunes Fonseca, Rodrigo Caruso Chate, Rodrigo Bastos Duarte Passos, Murilo Marques Almeida Silva, Patrícia Yokoo, Roberto Sasdelli, Gustavo Borges da Silva Teles, Marina Carolina Bueno da Silva, Gilberto Szarf
Abstract
Ground-glass opacity is a very frequent and unspecified finding in chest computed tomography. Therefore, it admits a wide range of differential diagnoses in the acute context, from viral pneumonias such as influenza virus, coronavirus disease 2019 and cytomegalovirus and even non-infectious lesions, such as vaping, pulmonary infarction, alveolar hemorrhage and pulmonary edema. For this diagnostic differentiation, ground glass must be correlated with other findings in imaging tests, with laboratory tests and with the patients' clinical condition. In the context of a pandemic, it is extremely important to remember the other pathologies with similar findings to coronavirus disease 2019 in the imaging exams.