Structural Changes in the Lung during Covid-19 Infection and Its Effect on Mortality Rate and Prognosis

Abstract

COVID-19 or SARS-Cov-19 has emerged in late 2019 as one of the highly pathogenic transmissible viruses ever known, comprising many features regarding its transmission and manifestations similar to those of its older siblings, SARS and MERS. COVID-19 has caused a pandemic that forced most of the world into isolation after threatening the lives of millions. In this article we shed more light on the structural changes that happens to the lung in the context of Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) confirmed COVID-19 infection based on gross examinations and CT scans, moreover, to correlate these changes to mortality rate hoping to identify the prognostic factors by which prognosis of the disease and mortality rate could be expected, higher involvement with higher severity degree in a short span of time indicates poor prognosis and high mortality chance, reviewing the literature data and records showed that the lungs undergo many changes on both macroscopic and microscopic levels (e.g. ground-glass opacity) which relates to the pathogenesis of the disease and manifestations; Most commonly pneumonia in the form of exudation of the lung with hyaline membrane formation rendering most of the lung non-functional causing hypoxemia and anosmia, all these findings that affect the lungs’ functions and lowers blood-oxygen saturation levels play a huge role in defining prognosis of the disease.