Imaging manifestations and diagnostic value of chest CT of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the Xiaogan area

Abstract

AIM: To report the epidemiological, clinical, and radiological characteristics of patients with COVID-19 in Xiaogan, Hubei, China. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The complete clinical and imaging data of 114 confirmed COVID-19 patients treated in Xiaogan Hospital were analysed retrospectively. Data were gathered regarding the presence of chest computed tomography (CT) abnormalities; the distribution, morphology, density, location, and stage of abnormal shadows on chest CT; and observing the correlation between the severity of chest infection and lymphocyte ratio and blood oxygen saturation (SPO 2 ) in patients.RESULTS: Chest CT revealed abnormal lung shadows in 110 patients. Regarding lesion distribution, multi-lobe lesions in both lungs were present in most patients (80 cases; 72.7%). Lesions most frequently involved both the peripheral zone and the central zone (62 cases; 56.4%). Regarding lesion morphology, 56 cases (50.1%) demonstrated patchy shadows that were partially fused into large areas. Thirty cases showed ground-glass opacity (27.3%), 30 cases showed the consolidation change (27.3%), and the remaining 50 cases showed both types of changes (45.4%). The progressing stage was the most common stage (54 cases; 49.1%). CT results showed a negative correlation with SPO 2 and lymphocyte numbers (p<0.05), with rvalues of À0.446 and À0.780, respectively. CONCLUSION: Spiral CT is a sensitive examination method, which can be applied to make an early diagnosis and for evaluation of progression, with a diagnostic sensitivity and accuracy better than that of nucleic acid detection.

Chest CT for detecting COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy

“…Of these patients, 2689 patients had positive RT-PCR results. Fourteen studies only enrolled patients diagnosed as COVID-19 by RT-PCR [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][16][17][18][19][20]. Therefore, we could only calculate sensitivity from the information provided in these studies.…”

“…Therefore, we could only calculate sensitivity from the information provided in these studies. Three studies were conducted in Wuhan [5,8,12]; 12 studies were conducted in the other regions, and the remaining one collected data throughout China [6,7,[9][10][11][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The mean or median age of patients ranged from 37 to 62.…”

“…Sensitivity was available in all studies ranging from 0.61 to 0.99 [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. However, only two studies reported the specificity of chest CT for diagnosing COVID-19 about 25% (95% CI = 21-30%) and 33% (95% CI = 23-44%), respectively (due to the significant heterogeneity and small number of studies, it was inappropriate to pool the data).…”

Chest CT features of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

“…The reticular pattern is usually seen in COVID-19 patients with pneumonia and reticulation may increase in patients with longer disease course [8,19,31]. The reported prevalence of reticular pattern and linear opacification is very variable in the literature and has been reported between 1% and 81% [13,14,18,19,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Moreover, subpleural curvilinear lines and fibrous stripes have been reported in COVID-19 patients (Figures 5a and 5b) [14,, and both may represent the replacement of cellular components by fibrosis [14,19].…”

What every orthopaedic surgeon should know about COVID-19: A review of the current literature

“…20 Late signs such as reversed halo sign (central ground-glass opacity surrounded by denser consolidation), batwing sign (large symmetrical shadows around bilateral hilum) and blizzard lung (white out of lung fields) occur with progressive involvement. 20,[22][23][24][25][26] Sensitivity of CT scans for COVID-19 is reported at 97% with a specificity of 25% in a retrospective analysis of 1014 cases of COVID-19. 22 Transmission Viral transmissions can occur via direct contact, respiratory droplets or airborne transmissions.…”