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Background: Measles virus can cause lower respiratory tract infection, so that chest radiography is necessary to investigate lung involvement in patients with respiratory distress., Purpose: To assess measles pneumonia imaging during the measles outbreak occurred in 2016-2017 in Italy., Material and Methods: We retrospectively observed adult patients with a serological diagnosis of measles, who underwent chest-X rays for suspected pneumonia. If a normal radiography resulted, the patient underwent unenhanced CT. A CT post processing software package was used for an additional quantitative lung and airway involvement analysis ., Results: Among 290 patients affected by measles, 150 underwent chest-X ray. Traditional imaging allowed the pneumonia diagnosis in 114 patients (76%). The most frequent abnormality at chest X-rays was bronchial wall thickening, observed in 88.5% of the cases; radiological findings are faint in the 25% of the cases (29/114 patients). In nine subjects with a normal chest X-ray, unenhanced CT with a quantitative analysis was performed, and depicted features consistent with constrictive bronchiolitis., Conclusion: Measles may produce bronchiolitis and pneumonia. In the cases in which involvement of pulmonary parenchyma is not sufficient to result in radiological abnormalities, CT used with a dedicated postprocessing software package, provides an accurate lungs and airways analysis, also determining the percentage of lung involvement.

The clinical features, chest radiographs and computed tomographic (CT) images were evaluated in 11 cases with serologically proved adult measles complicated with pneumonia (10 were previously healthy and one had sarcoidosis). Pneumonia appeared during the rash period in all cases. Respiratory symptoms were cough (9/11), dyspnea (3/11), and hypoxemia (10/11). Pneumonia manifestations were detected in only 4 cases by chest radiograph; on the other hand, they were seen in all cases by CT scan and consisted of ground-glass opacities (73%), nodular opacities (64%) and consolidation (27%). CT seems to be a useful method to detect measles pneumonia if it is suspected. Measles pneumonia in previously healthy patients had a good prognosis, as the hypoxemia disappeared within 6 days in all cases. The sarcoidosis patient showed prolonged pneumonic shadows and period of hypoxemia. Measles pneumonia occurring in a host with cellular immunodeficiency may have a severe clinical course.