Differential diagnoses in COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective descriptive study

Abstract

Since 02.2020, SARS-CoV-2 infection rapidly spread across Southern Switzerland. The available literature on differential diagnoses of COVID-19 is scarce. Our study aims to review differential diagnoses of SARS-CoV-2 infections in public hospitals in Southern Switzerland and to describe patients’ related outcome. Between 01.03.2020 and 15.04.2020, 344 patients had a chest CT-scan at admission, 210 of them were pathological. 172 patients had a positive nasopharyngeal swab for SARSCoV- 2 and 38 patients needed an additional diagnostic work-up and were included in this study. Among the selected patients,8 patients underwent 2 PCR for SARS-CoV2, 18 of them 3 PCR. We observed 29 infective cases, 3 due to cardiovascular aetiologies, 2 due to COPD exacerbation, 1 due to cryptogenic organizing pneumonia, 3 not related to respiratory diseases. Our results highlight the importance of differential diagnosis in times of widespread occurrence of COVID-19, considering the similarity of symptoms and imaging appearance with other respiratory conditions.

Keywords

• Interstitial bilateral pneumonia
• differential diagnoses
• COVID-19
• SARS-CoV-2 infection.