A Protocol of Low Dose Chest CT to Verify Suspected COVID -19 infection

Abstract

Chest CT scanning is significant in verifying COVID-19 infection in patients with clinical symptoms,although CT scanning uses ionizing radiation. So we aim to investigate the demonstration of relevance andaccuracy of chest tomography using a low-dose protocol compared to the standard auto-modulation protocolof 50 – 210 mAs. Moreover, to assess whether any distinguishing signs in patients might help determinethe severity of the respiratory infection from COVID-19. A standard auto-modulation protocol of 50 – 210mAs was performed for all patients (120 patients), Rotation time 0.5 second. Of the 120 patients whoseCT scan showed signs of COVID-19 infection, 47 patients aged over 50 years were selected. Low doseCT scanning (30 mAs) was performed on these patients immediately. Of the 120 patients over the age of50 with COVID-19 according to a PCR underwent a CT chest, only 47 showed signs of COVID-19.Whencompared to standard-dose, low-dose demonstrated excellent sensitivity in detecting typical findings ofCOVID-19 (coefficient of significance (C.S) = 0.98–0.99, P-values < 0.05 one reader and P-values < 0.01two readers). The mean effective dose values were 6.32±2.82 and 1.45±0.29mSvin the stander and lowdose,respectively.A low dose protocol can be used with high reliability and accuracy to reduce the ionizingradiation risks in the state of reproducible assessment. On the other hand, we emphasize there are indicatorswith high reliability of a relationship between infection with COVID-19 and its severity and the work nature,environment, age, body mass index (BMI) and Patient Health Status.