Abstract
BackgroundAfter the spread of COVID-19 pneumonia, chest CT examination was used as a substantial non-invasive complement to RT-PCR for diagnosing and as a rapid screening tool when RT-PCR results are unavailable. Our study aimed at the analysis of the lung abnormalities detected by chest CT in COVID-19 pneumonia according to the severity and duration of symptoms.ResultsIn the early phase (n = 60), 32 patients had negative CT findings and 28 patients had positive findings with a mean total lung severity score of 2.13. In the intermediate phase (n = 116), 4 patients had negative CT findings and 112 patients had positive findings with a mean total lung severity score of 16.08. In the late phase (n = 36), all patients had positive findings with a mean total lung severity score of 17.83. CT lung abnormalities were progressed on follow-up CT studies. We found a high total lung severity score in many patients with mild symptoms with a mean of 14.77 and a low total lung severity score in many patients with moderate to severe symptoms with a mean of 9.14.ConclusionChest CT should be used as a routine examination for diagnosing COVID-19 pneumonia and follow-up of disease advance. The progression of lung abnormalities was related to the duration more than the severity of symptoms.
Highlights
After the spread of COVID-19 pneumonia, chest Computed tomography (CT) examination was used as a substantial noninvasive complement to real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for diagnosing and as a rapid screening tool when RT-PCR results are unavailable
The aim of this study is to correlate lung abnormalities detected by thin-section chest CT in COVID-19 pneumonia with duration and severity of symptoms
Study population In this prospective study, non-contrast thin-section chest CT examinations were performed for 247 symptomatic patients suspected to have COVID-19 pneumonia throughout a period extending from May 17, 2020, to June 14, 2020
Summary
After the spread of COVID-19 pneumonia, chest CT examination was used as a substantial noninvasive complement to RT-PCR for diagnosing and as a rapid screening tool when RT-PCR results are unavailable. Our study aimed at the analysis of the lung abnormalities detected by chest CT in COVID-19 pneumonia according to the severity and duration of symptoms. In December 2019, a novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is the seventh known coronavirus that achieves human-to-human transmission despite its zoonotic origin causing serious coronavirus disease (COVID-19), mainly pneumonia [6,7,8]. Similar pulmonary syndromes have been caused by other strains of the coronavirus family as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), with no human infection reported since 2003, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome. About 20% of patients have a serious illness that may rapidly progress to ARDS with a 3% mortality rate [11,12,13]
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