Asymptomatic patients' greatest fear: Can one develop pneumonia without a single coronavirus sign?

Photo: pixabay.com/telegraf

The greatest fear of those who find out that they are positive for coronavirus is to develop asymptomatic pneumonia. As Telegraf has been told in a Covid clinic in Belgrade, such a thing is extremely rare, but not impossible.

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We asked pulmonologist Dr. Mirjana Danilovic earlier how it was possible for patients to develop pneumonia without any symptoms.

"Coronavirus is still an unknown to us. With viral pneumonia, you often cannot detect pneumonia by listening to the lungs. Meaning, you listen and you don’t hear it. The problem with coronavirus is that even in an ordinary lung scan, inflammation is often not detected because these are very discreet changes. Therefore, a CT chest scan should be asked for in coronavirus patients," Dr. Danilovic told Telegraf in an interview.

Does this mean that someone who is asymptomatically positive for coronavirus can still develop inflammation?

"They hardly can without a fever, it's possible that there is elevated temperature that occurs, passes, and then starts again, or a cough, a feeling of shortness of breath, so, some vague symptoms. With coronavirus, the symptoms range from very mild to drastic in those who have a too strong reaction, but even those of us who do this job find it sometimes difficult to recognize. That is why it is more important that when we suspect all the potential changes, we check it with a scanner, and not with a lung X-ray," she pointed out.

What happens to the lungs of asymptomatic patients?

Asymptomatic cases may not develop pneumonia just like that, but there is something else that worries scientists. John Kinnear, dean at the Faculty of Medicine at Anglia Ruskin University, shared the knowledge he received from Wuhan at the very beginning of the pandemic, and that is that a large number of people did not have any signs of severe respiratory disease until they collapsed and died.

"One study from Wuhan described pathological changes in the lungs seen in a CT scan even in completely asymptomatic patients. Researchers found lesions that coincide with inflammation of the underlying lung tissue, which can also be seen in other diseases. What remains a mystery is why, despite these changes, patients do not show typical symptoms of pneumonia, such as difficulty breathing."

As he says, only a quarter of the patients developed fever, cough and difficulty breathing, and many did not at all.

"The silent response to the infection is one of a few riddles of Covid. The lack of symptoms before active pathology carries a risk both for the infected individuals and the public. Current advice encourages patients to stay at home even though they are asymptomatic, which is why they go to the hospital late and take additional risks," he concluded and advised everyone who is asymptomatic to have a CT chest scan that is more accurate than an X-ray.

(Telegraf.rs)