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Pulmonary measles disease: old and new imaging tools

  • CHEST RADIOLOGY
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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 and methods

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Diagnostic Imaging Unit, National Institute for Infectious Diseases, L.Spallanzani, Rome, Italy

    Fabrizio Albarello, Massimo Cristofaro, Elisa Busi Rizzi & Vincenzo Schininà

  2. Clinical Department, National Institute for Infectious Diseases, L.Spallanzani, Rome, Italy

    Maria Letizia Giancola & Emanuele Nicastri

Authors
  1. Fabrizio Albarello
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  2. Massimo Cristofaro
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  3. Elisa Busi Rizzi
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  4. Maria Letizia Giancola
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  5. Emanuele Nicastri
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  6. Vincenzo Schininà
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Correspondence to Vincenzo Schininà.

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All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Albarello, F., Cristofaro, M., Busi Rizzi, E. et al. Pulmonary measles disease: old and new imaging tools. Radiol med 123, 935–943 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-018-0919-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-018-0919-y

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