TY - JOUR T1 - Persistent isolated impairment of gas transfer following COVID-19 pneumonitis relates to perfusion defects on dual-energy computed tomography JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00224-2022 VL - 8 IS - 4 SP - 00224-2022 AU - Laura C. Price AU - Benjamin Garfield AU - Chloe Bloom AU - Nidhish Jeyin AU - Daniel Nissan AU - James H. Hull AU - Brijesh Patel AU - Gisli Jenkins AU - Simon Padley AU - William Man AU - Suveer Singh AU - Carole A. Ridge Y1 - 2022/10/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/8/4/00224-2022.abstract N2 - Breathlessness is common in patients after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1]. Patients may have an isolated impairment of gas transfer (diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO)) at lung function testing, often without obvious interstitial lung disease or classical pulmonary emboli on imaging. Iodine maps from post-COVID-19 patients undergoing dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) demonstrate hypoenhancement in areas of normal lung parenchyma [2] (figure 1). We hypothesised that in breathless patients recovering from COVID-19, low DLCO would correlate with a computed tomography (CT) marker of lung perfusion, measured using DECT-derived iodine enhancement, including in patients where parenchymal disease was absent. As an even more specific indicator for the pulmonary vascular compartment, we hypothesised that the transfer coefficient of the lung for carbon monoxide (KCO) (i.e. DLCO corrected for alveolar volume) would even better correlate with DECT perfusion, and more so than forced vital capacity (FVC) and CT measures of interstitial lung involvement.A novel iodine perfusion score correlates with breathlessness and DLCO in patients post-#COVID19 without obvious interstitial disease on CT, suggesting that lung perfusion assessment may be useful in patients without another cause of dyspnoea https://bit.ly/3U6E2f5 ER -