Diagnostic of COVID-19: Chest Computer Tomography or RT-PCR?

Abstract

In this review article, we presented a gold-standard method to detect the SARS-CoV-2, the novel virus that is causing the COVID-19 outbreak, and the use of a computer tomography (CT) method to detect the complications of the disease. We showed the controversial analysis about which method is the best to detect the disease earlier due to the COVID-19 complications. We searched the articles in the main database (PubMed/Medline, Elsevier Science Direct, Scopus, Isi Web of Science, Embase, Excerpta Medica, UptoDate, Lilacs, Novel Coronavirus Resource Directory from Elsevier), in the high-impact international scientific Journals (Scimago Journal and Country Rank - SJR - and Journal Citation Reports - JCR), such as The Lancet, Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, Physiological Reviews, Journal of the American Medical Association, Plos One, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and in the data from Center for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and World Health Organization (WHO). We prior selected meta-analysis, systematic reviews, article reviews, and original articles in this order. We reviewed 96 articles and used 45 from March to June 2020, using the terms coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, novel coronavirus, Wuhan coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome, 2019-nCoV, 2019 novel coronavirus, n-CoV-2, covid, n-SARS-2, COVID-19, corona virus, coronaviruses, RT-PCR, computer tomography (CT), diagnostic methods, with the tools MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), AND, OR, and the characters [,“,; /., to ensure the best review topics. We concluded that chest CT plays an important role in the timely detection of lung infection abnormalities in the early phase of COVID-19 infection. However, the RT-PCR is the gold standard method to detect SARS-CoV-2.