Abstract
BackgroundCharacteristic chest computed tomography (CT) manifestation of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was added as a diagnostic criterion in the Chinese National COVID-19 management guideline. Whether the characteristic findings of Chest CT could differentiate confirmed COVID-19 cases from other positive nucleic acid test (NAT)-negative patients has not been rigorously evaluated.PurposeWe aim to test whether chest CT manifestation of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) can be differentiated by a radiologist or a computer-based CT image analysis system.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective case-control study that included 52 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients and 80 non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia patients between 20 December, 2019 and 10 February, 2020. The chest CT images were evaluated by radiologists in a double blind fashion. A computer-based image analysis system (uAI System, Lianying Inc., Shanghai, China) detected the lesions in 18 lung segments defined by Boyden classification system and calculated the infected volume in each segment. The number and volume of lesions detected by radiologist and computer system was compared with Chi-square test or Mann-Whitney U test as appropriate.ResultsThe main CT manifestations of COVID-19 were multi-lobar/segmental peripheral ground-glass opacities and patchy air space infiltrates. The case and control groups were similar in demographics, comorbidity, and clinical manifestations. There was no significant difference in eight radiologist identified CT image features between the two groups of patients. There was also no difference in the absolute and relative volume of infected regions in each lung segment.ConclusionWe documented the non-differentiating nature of initial chest CT image between COVID-19 and other viral pneumonia with suspected symptoms. Our results do not support CT findings replacing microbiological diagnosis as a critical criterion for COVID-19 diagnosis. Our findings may prompt re-evaluation of isolated patients without laboratory confirmation.
Highlights
Due to high transmissibility and so far lack of proven treatment, the 2019 novel coronavirus disease, 2019-nCoV, has quickly disseminated worldwide (Bogoch et al, 2020; Dong et al, 2020)
We randomly selected 80 laboratoryconfirmed non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia patients as controls. These presented with suspected symptoms and exposure history and underwent nucleic acid test (NAT) and chest computed tomography (CT) exams in the same period
Chest CT examination was performed within 10 days of disease onset
Summary
Due to high transmissibility and so far lack of proven treatment, the 2019 novel coronavirus disease, 2019-nCoV, has quickly disseminated worldwide (Bogoch et al, 2020; Dong et al, 2020). Given the long turnaround time and suboptimal sensitivity of NAT, chest computed tomography (CT) was proposed as a first line diagnostic tool by the Chinese national guideline (trial version 5) (Ai et al, 2020). This created problems, resulting isolating patients with COVID19 with patients with similar respiratory symptoms due to other infections, as well as delaying appropriate treatment for other treatable infections. Characteristic chest computed tomography (CT) manifestation of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was added as a diagnostic criterion in the Chinese National COVID-19 management guideline. Whether the characteristic findings of Chest CT could differentiate confirmed COVID-19 cases from other positive nucleic acid test (NAT)-negative patients has not been rigorously evaluated.
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