Incidental PET/CT findings during COVID-19 pandemic [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Incidental findings in patients undergoing FDG-PET/CT during the COVID-19 pandemic
IRAS ID
284156
Contact name
Jamshed Bomanji
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London Hospitals NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
This study is a retrospective analysis of imaging data of patients who underwent FDG PET/CT at UCLH during the initial period of COVID-19 spread in the UK. The aim of the study is to describe the demographic, clinical and PET/CT features of patients who underwent FDG PET/CT scan in UCLH, a large teaching hospital in London designated as COVID-19 hub during the UK lockdown.nThoracic and extrathoracic incidental findings and their potential impact on patient management will be investigated. The collected data will be compared to data from patients scanned in March – April 2019, which will serve as a control group. The principal research question is whether there was an increase of incidental findings on FDG PET/CT scans during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could raise the suspicion of COVID-19 infection in patients with no symptoms at all or with no typical manifestations of COVID-19 infection.\nAs it has become known that a significant proportion of infected individuals are asymptomatic, but can still spread the infection, the research intends to help radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians identify those individuals as early as possible. This is expected to have an important impact on these patients’ management, and lead to practices with the goal to mitigate the virus spread, and increase hospital staff safety.\n
REC name
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REC reference
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