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Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Lung CT Segmentation to Identify Consolidations and Ground Glass Areas for Quantitative Assesment of SARS-CoV Pneumonia
Published on: December 19, 2020
A Japanese case of COVID-19: An autopsy report
Koji Okudela1, Hiroyuki Hayashi2, Yukihiro Yoshimura3
1Department of Pathology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Kanagawa, Japan.
Abstract:
A 93-year-old woman was admitted with a 10-day history of cough and prostration. Thoracic computed tomography revealed extensive ground-glass opacities in both the lungs. The polymerase chain reaction test of sputum for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was positive. She was treated with antiviral agents and steroid pulse therapy. However, her oxygen saturation gradually declined, and she died 10 days after hospitalization. The most important autopsy finding was fuzzily segmented diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) that expanded from the subpleural to the medial area. No remarkable changes were observed in organs other than the lungs. Therefore, pneumocytes were suggested as the primary target for SARS-CoV-2, which might explain why coronavirus infectious disease-19 is a serious condition. Thus, early treatment is essential to prevent viral replication from reaching a level that triggers DAD.
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