Clinical diagnostic value of computed tomography features of corona virus disease 2019 in 17 cases

Abstract

Objective To investigate the specific chest computed tomography (CT) features of corona virus disease 2019(COVID-19) and to evaluate its clinical diagnostic value. Methods The clinical data of 35 cases with suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia diagnosed from Shuguang Hospital affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Oriental Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Tongji University School of Medicine from January 1, 2020 to February 14, 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 17 cases with positive results of two times of real time reverse-transcription–polymerase chain-reaction (RT-PCR) for 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) were evaluated as the case group, and the remaining 18 cases with negative results of two times of RT-PCR for 2019-nCoV were evaluated as the control group. The features of chest CT images of 35 cases were obtained. The frequencies of four CT imaging indicators including ground-glass opacities (GGO), crazy-paving , heterogeneous consolidation and bilateral subpleural distribution were analyzed. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for COVID-19 were calculated. Results In the case group, there were 11 cases (64.71%) with GGO, 7 cases (41.18%) with crazy-paving, 6 cases (35.29%) with heterogeneous consolidation, and 16 cases (94.12%) with bilateral subpleural distribution, while in the control group, there were 7 cases (27.28%) with GGO, 1 case (5.56%) with crazy-paving, 6 cases (33.33%) with heterogeneous consolidation, and 5 cases (29.41%) with bilateral subpleural distribution. When multiple subpleural lesions or any two of the CT indicators were used as the characteristic indicator, the diagnosis efficiencies were better, with the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and Youden index of 94.12%, 72.22%, 76.19%, 98.86% and 0.66, respectively, and 88.24%, 77.78%, 78.95%, 87.5% and 0.66, respectively. Conclusions Chest CT indictors are of high clinical diagnostic value for COVID-19. Any two of the four CT indicators (GGO, crazy-paving, heterogeneous consolidation and bilateral subpleural distribution) or the single characteristics (bilateral subpleural distribution) are of high diagnostic efficacy. Key words: COVID-19; Computed tomography