📄 A case report of COVID-19 with false negative RT-PCR test: necessity of chest CT.

The definite diagnosis of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is based on the viral isolation or positive result of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from sputum, or nasal swab, or throat swab. However, the sensitivity to detect COVID-19 of real time (RT)-PCR is reported to be lower than that of chest CT. We report a case of 34-year-old man who was diagnosed as negative for COVID-19 based on the four sequential RT-PCR tests of his pharyngeal swab. Chest CT showed patchy ground-glass opacity on admission, and it rapidly progressed to segmental mixed consolidation and ground-glass opacity 3 days after admission, and it resolved in left upper lobe, but showed multifocal ground-glass opacities 7 days after admission, and they resolved within 2 weeks. The fifth RT-PCR test finally revealed positive results at the fifth day after admission. It is difficult to distinguish COVID-19 pneumonia from other viral pneumonia on CT findings alone; however, we emphasize the utility of chest CT to detect early change of COVID-19 in cases which RT-PCR tests show negative results.

keywords 🔗 COVID-19 (1240) 🔗 2019 corona virus disease (1) 🔗 CT (356) 🔗 computed tomography (55) 🔗 CXR (6) 🔗 chest radiography (12) 🔗 RT-PCR (421) 🔗 real-time fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (1) 🔗 polymerase chain (300) 🔗 glass opacities (51) 🔗 nasal swab (58) 🔗 throat swab (43) 🔗 chain reaction (303) 🔗 ground-glass opacity (41)

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