OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate whether the volume and morphology of the olfactory bulb are effective in the occurrence of anosmia in patients after COVID-19 infection.
METHODS:The olfactory bulbus volume was calculated by examining the brain magnetic resonance imaging of cases with positive (+) COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction test with and without anosmia. Evaluated magnetic resonance imaging images were the scans of patients before they were infected with COVID-19. The olfactory bulbus and olfactory nerve morphology of these patients were examined.The brain magnetic resonance imaging of 59 patients with anosmia and 64 controls without anosmia was evaluated. The olfactory bulb volumes of both groups were calculated. The olfactory bulb morphology and olfactory nerve types were examined and compared between the two groups.
RESULTS:The left and right olfactory bulb volumes were calculated for the anosmia group and control group as 47.8±15/49.3±14.3 and 50.5±9.9/50.9±9.6, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. When the olfactory bulb morphology was compared between the two groups, it was observed that types D and R were dominant in the anosmia group (p<0.05).Concerning olfactory nerve morphology, type N was significantly more common in the control group (p<0.05).CONCLUSIONS: According to our results, the olfactory bulb volume does not affect the development of anosmia after COVID-19. However, it is striking that the bulb morphology significantly differs between the patients with and without anosmia. It is clear that the evaluation of COVID-19-associated smell disorders requires studies with a larger number of patients and a clinicoradiological approach.
Many flaps have been used to repair complex soft tissue defects of the leg. When the affected areas are relatively small and the local flaps are not suitable, microsurgical operation seems to be an excessive treatment and thus perforator flaps can be used. The authors present the combination of ipsilateral and contralateral perforator flaps for coverage of the traumatic lower extremity.
T he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak originated in Wuhan Province of China, in December 2019. The disease is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) (1). COVID-19 is a rapidly spreading viral disease. Clinically, the disease can be asymptomatic or present as an upper respiratory tract infection; it can lead to extremely serious conditions such as pneumonia, encephalitis, pulmonary or systemic emboli formation, acute respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure, systemic inflammatory response, and sepsis (2-4). The definitive diagnosis of COVID-19 is made by the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test (5). However, this test lacks high sensitivity and specificity, and the results come rather late, after several hours and sometimes even days (6, 7). In addition, the RT-PCR test can give false-negative results during the early phases of the disease and in cases with a low viral load. In such conditions, computed tomography (CT) findings of the lungs may still indicate a COVID-19 infiltration (8, 9). On the other hand, CT findings of pulmonary involvement are not specific for COVID-19, so a COVID-19 diagnosis based solely on CT scan is not always practical. This is why The Radiological Society of North America and the Dutch Radiological Society have developed diagnostic systems with the sole purpose of evaluating the chest CT findings of patients with suspected COVID-19 infections. The American system is called the Expert Consensus Statement on Reporting Chest CT Findings Related to COVID-19, and the Dutch system is called COVID-19 Reporting and Data System (CO-RADS) (10,11). The literature lacks a sufficient number of studies to properly audit and evaluate the utility of either diagnostic
PURPOSEWe aimed to evaluate the use of the COVID-19 reporting and data system (CO-RADS) among radiologists and the diagnostic performance of this system.
METHODSFour radiologists retrospectively evaluated the chest CT examinations of 178 patients. The study included 143 patients with positive reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test results and 35 patients whose RT-PCR tests were negative but whose clinical and/or radiological findings were consistent with COVID-19. Fleiss' kappa (κ) values were calculated, and individual observers' scores were compared. To investigate diagnostic efficiency, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated for each interpreter.
RESULTSThe interpreters were in full agreement on 574 of 712 (80.6%) evaluations. The common Fleiss' κ value of all the radiologists combined was 0.712 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.692-0.769). A reliable prediction on the basis of RT-PCR and clinical findings indicated the mean area under the curve (AUC) of Fleiss' κ value as 0.89 (95% CI 0.708-0.990). General interpreter agreement was found to range from moderate to good.
CONCLUSIONThe interpreter agreement for CO-RADS categories 1 and 5 was reasonably good. We conclude that this scoring system will make a valua...
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