Aishwarya T A, Mohan DK, Nandhini K, Raavi V, Perumal V. Impact of X-radiation in the management of COVID-19 disease. World J Radiol 2022; 14(7): 219-228 [PMID: 36160628 DOI: 10.4329/wjr.v14.i7.219]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Venkatachalam Perumal, DSc, PhD, Professor, Department of Human Genetics, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to be University), Porur, Chennai 600116, Tamil Nadu, India. venkip@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Radiol. Jul 28, 2022; 14(7): 219-228 Published online Jul 28, 2022. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v14.i7.219
Impact of X-radiation in the management of COVID-19 disease
Aishwarya T A, Divya K Mohan, K Nandhini, Venkateswarlu Raavi, Venkatachalam Perumal
Aishwarya T A, Divya K Mohan, K Nandhini, Venkatachalam Perumal, Department of Human Genetics, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to be University), Porur, Chennai 600 116, Tamil Nadu, India
Venkateswarlu Raavi, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to be University), Tamaka, Kolar 563 103, Karnataka, India
Author contributions: Aishwarya T A, Mohan DK, Nandhini K contributed to review of literature and preparation of the draft; Raavi V contributed to conceptualization and design of the work, revision, and editing; Perumal V contributed to conceptualization and approval of the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Venkatachalam Perumal, DSc, PhD, Professor, Department of Human Genetics, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to be University), Porur, Chennai 600116, Tamil Nadu, India. venkip@yahoo.com
Received: March 27, 2022 Peer-review started: March 27, 2022 First decision: June 8, 2022 Revised: June 16, 2022 Accepted: July 18, 2022 Article in press: July 18, 2022 Published online: July 28, 2022
Abstract
Coronaviruses are a diverse group of viruses that infect both animals and humans. Even though the existence of coronavirus and its infection to humans is not new, the 2019-novel coronavirus (nCoV) caused a major burden to individuals and society i.e., anxiety, fear of infection, extreme competition for hospitalization, and more importantly financial liability. The nCoV infection/disease diagnosis was based on non-specific signs and symptoms, biochemical parameters, detection of the virus using reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and X-ray-based imaging. This review focuses on the consolidation of potentials of X-ray-based imaging modality [chest-X radiography (CXR) and chest computed tomography (CT)] and low-dose radiation therapy (LDRT) for screening, severity, and management of COVID-19 disease. Reported studies suggest that CXR contributed significantly toward initial rapid screening/diagnosis and CT- imaging to monitor the disease severity. The chest CT has high sensitivity up to 98% and low specificity for diagnosis and severity of COVID-19 disease compared to RT-PCR. Similarly, LDRT compliments drug therapy in the early recovery/Less hospital stays by maintaining the physiological parameters better than the drug therapy alone. All the results undoubtedly demonstrated the evidence that X-ray-based technology continues to evolve and play a significant role in human health care even during the pandemic.
Core Tip: Majority of asymptomatic individuals with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease, an early diagnosis was a challenge despite the gold standard reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction measures the viral nucleic acid with a turnaround period of reporting for 5-6 h. This ultimately led to the usage of chest-X radiography with sensitivity up to 80%, which served as a screening tool for COVID-19. X-radiation-based computed tomography imaging served as another modality to monitor the severity of COVID-19 disease with sensitivity up to 98%. Low-dose radiation therapy with a limited setting showed that it can complement drug therapies in the management of COVID-19. Therefore, X-rays on a whole are been widely used for both diagnostic and therapeutic management of COVID-19 disease.
