BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has reached more than 20 million people since its appearance in December 2019. As a result of the infection process by the Sars-CoV-2 virus, patients manifest initial symptoms easily mistaken for common flu. However, in a small group of the population, the condition may progress to pneumonia or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to carry out an integrative review on laboratory and imaging diagnostics for COVID-19, in the period from 2019 to 2021. METHOD: Electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar, SciELO, Virtual Library, LILACS, MEDLINE, ScienceDirect and the official website of the World Health Organization were used. RESULTS: RT-qPCR identifies fragments of viral RNA in the initial stage of the disease since the genes E and RdRp are the most used, given the great sensitivity. Imaging and serological methods can be used as complementary exams. The main radiographic findings are reticular and ground-glass opacity patterns, reversed halo sign, mosaic attenuation, and consolidations. The antibody levels are detected after the seventh day of symptom onset. CONCLUSION: Caution should be exercised when interpreting the results for the diagnosis of COVID-19, since the onset of clinical symptoms and laboratory and imaging tests must be taken into account.

BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) foster T lymphocytes to fight cancer, but they can also trigger immune-related adverse events (irAE) in various organs, including thyroid dysfunction that can manifest itself in terms of both hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism or subclinical disease. OBJECTIVE: Based on previous observations, this study evaluated the impact of oncological immunotherapy on the development of thyroid dysfunction in a cohort of patients treated with ICI at our institution. METHODS: We collected 10 cases of thyroid irAE that emerged from 24 cancer patients treated with immunotherapy, belonging to a cohort of 120 patients sent to our clinic by the Oncology Department of our institution, between December 2016 and March 2020. RESULTS: From the analysis of the data, thyroid irAE emerged after a median time of 9 weeks, and they occurred mainly in females. Regardless of the initial presentation (thyroiditis with thyrotoxicosis, hypothyroidism, or worsening of the previous subclinical hypothyroidism), later all patients developed persistent hypothyroidism which required hormone replacement therapy with levothyroxine. This finding was confirmed by a statistically significant increase in the median value of TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) between the pre-ICI treatment and subsequent phases and, for the first time, by a reduction in the median value of the thyroid volume estimated by neck ultrasound, a sign of destructive thyroiditis. CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirm that patients undergoing immunotherapy should be monitored for potential thyroid dysfunction with biochemical assessments and changing in thyroid volume estimated by ultrasound could be helpful in the diagnostic work-up.