Background COVID-19 pneumonia represents the most severe pandemic of the twenty-first century and has crucial clinical, social and economical implications. The scientific community has focused attention and resources on clinical and radiological features of COVID-19 pneumonia. Few papers analysing the vast spectrum of differential diagnoses have been published. Main body Complexity of differential diagnosis lays in the evidence of similar radiological findings as ground-glass opacities, crazy paving pattern and consolidations in COVID-19 pneumonia and a multitude of other lung diseases. Differential diagnosis is and will be extremely important during and after the pandemic peak, when there are fewer COVID-19 pneumonia cases. The aim of our pictorial essay is to schematically present COVID-19 pneumonia most frequent differential diagnoses to help the radiologist face the current COVID-19 pneumonia challenge. Conclusions Clinical data, laboratory tests and imaging are pillars of a trident, which allows to reach a correct diagnosis in order to grant an excellent allocation of human and economical resources. The radiologist has a pivotal role in the early diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia because he may raise suspicion of the pathology and help to avoid COVID-19 virus spread.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, coronavirus, Pneumonia, Computed tomography, differential diagnosis, 【초록키워드】 pathology, pandemic, Diagnosis, Spread, early diagnosis, Ground-glass opacities, clinical, Lung diseases, COVID-19 virus, Scientific community, resource, consolidation, Evidence, Laboratory test, Implications, pneumonia cases, complexity, help, resources, radiological finding, raise, differential diagnose, radiological feature, 【제목키워드】 diagnose,