Lower airways and lungs affection in coronavirus infection covid-19 among children and adults: similarities and differences (review of literature)

Abstract

The review presents the data of actual publications for 2019-2020 regarding the course of a new coronavirus infection COVID-19 in children and adults. The features of a new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causes of its tropism to human respiratory system are discussed. The questions of clinical and roentgenological manifestations of lung affection in COVID-19 among children and adults are described in details. The adult COVID-19 is characterized by the presence of clinical symptoms of acute respiratory viral infection: elevation of temperature ( 90 %), cough (dry or with small amount of sputum) in 80% of cases, dyspnea (55 %), fatigability (44 %), sense of stiffness in chest ( 20 %). The most severe dyspnea is being developed by the days 68 from the moment of falling ill. Separately, the peculiar features of computed tomography of the lungs in children and adults with COVID-19 are discussed. The typical signs for CT-picture of the lungs in children with COVID-19 infection and pneumonia are bilateral affection, infiltration with a typical surrounding aureole the sign of halo, the symptom of opal glass with predominantly peripheral localization and often in combination with elevated procalcitonin level. The cases of pneumonias in newborns and children of the first year of life with COVID-19 infection are considered in the paper. A clinical case with roentgenograms of thoracic organs and results of computed tomography accompanying is presented as an illustration. The high-risk groups of complicated COVID-19 course can include children with chronic bronchopulmonary diseases, patients with immune deficiencies, hemodynamically significant heart failures and chronic renal disease.