Clinical and CT imaging characteristics of COVID-19 cases in Wenzhou city: A retrospective analysis

Abstract

Background: In December 2019, Wuhan witnessed the outbreak of an “unexplained pneumonia” caused by a novel coronavirus strain infection and was dubbed the COVID-19 by the WHO. The disease quickly spread to China. This study aimed to investigate the disease’s evolving epidemiological history, as well as analyze the clinical and CT imaging characteristics, treatment regimens, and patients’ prognosis.Methods: This was a retrospective study whose cases were 64 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. The clinical data were obtained from patients who were admitted to the isolation ward from 21 January 2020 to 19 February 2020.Results: 60 out of 64 patients had a definitive history of exposure to people who had traveled from Wuhan City. The median time from onset of symptoms to first hospital admission was 3.9±1.9 days. The initial symptoms included fever (46/64), dry cough (38/64), fatigue or myalgia (23/64), sore throat (10/64), diarrhea (3/64) along with late-onset symptoms like chest pains (2/64) and headaches (2/64). The majority of the patients (43/64) had normal white blood cell counts while 29.7 % (19/64) had leukopenia. Only two patients (3.1 %) presented with leukocytosis. 58 of the 64patients had abnormal radiological findings on chest CTs. The first chest CTs (within 2 days) was more sensitive in detecting COVID-19 infection (85.9 %) compared to the initial RT-PCR (56.3 %; p<0.01). The CTs showed lesions in multiple lung lobes in three-quarters of the patients while 15.6 % had lesions localized to one lobe. Most of the lesions were typically dense with ground-glass opacity co-existing with consolidation or cord-like shadows. Most of these patients (50/64) have recovered and got discharged giving a mean length of hospital stay of 13.5±4.8 days. Our hospital unit has not reported any COVID-19 related death so far. Conclusions: Early intervention in COVID-19 disease improves patients’ prognosis. Our data demonstrate the superiority of early radiological tests ahead of RT-PCR. The initial and dynamic CT changes in COVID-19 patients along with other clinical data shared above can better guide clinical decision making.

A systematic review of CT chest in COVID‐19 diagnosis and its potential application in a surgical setting

“…The retrospective studies examined demonstrated a high sensitivity rate for CT chest compared with RT‐PCR in symptomatic COVID‐19 patients [15–17,21–32]. The largest study to date, by Ai et al ., is a retrospective analysis which included 1014 patients who were being tested for COVID‐19 in Wuhan, China [26].…”

Sensitivitas Pemeriksaan CT-Scan pada pasien dengan Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19)

“…Hasil penelitian dari literatur ke-8 oleh Fu et al, 2020 14 di China mendapatkan hasil dari 64 pasien, 58 diantaranya memiliki temuan abnormal pada pemeriksaan CT scan toraks. CT scan pertama (dalam 2 hari) memiliki sensitivitas yang lebih tinggi dari RT-PCR dalam mendeteksi COVID-19 yaitu sekitar 85,9% untuk CT scan toraks dan 56,3% untuk RT-PCR.…”