Differential Diagnosis of New-Onset Pulmonary Ground Glass Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Case Report

Abstract

The paper describes a clinical case of hypersensitivity pneumonitis in a young patient during the COVID-19 pandemic when the patient having complaints of dyspnea and interstitial lung changes as ground glass opacity was initially unambiguously diagnosed with viral COVID-related bilateral pneumonia. The chief computed tomography manifestations in the lung were infiltrative inflammatory changes as numerous areas of predominantly interstitial infiltration by the type of ground glass, with consolidation areas and reticular changes, varying in extent, peripheral localization, mainly in the lower lobes and with the 25–50% involvement of the right and left lung parenchyma. The diagnosis of hypersensitivity pneumonitis was confirmed by cytological and histological examinations of the biopsy material obtained during bronchoscopy using a set of biopsies and endobronchial cryobiopsy.This clinical case demonstrates that the chest computed tomography detection of pulmonary ground glasstype changes is a reason for further patient examinations and requires morphological verification of the diagnosis, since the cost of a diagnostic error is the life of a patient.

Keywords

• differential diagnostics
• hypersensitivity pneumonitis
• new coronavirus infection
• ground glass