Chest Lesion CT Radiological Features and Quantitative Analysis in RT-PCR Turned Negative and Clinical Symptoms Resolved COVID-19 Patients

Overview

Journal Quant Imaging Med Surg

Specialty Radiology

Date 2020 Jun 19

PMID 32550139

Citations 15

Authors

Siyao Du

Si Gao

Guoliang Huang

Shu Li

Wei Chong

Ziyi Jia

Gang Hou

Yi Xiang J Wang

Lina Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Many studies have described lung lesion computed tomography (CT) features of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients at the early and progressive stages. In this study, we aim to evaluate lung lesion CT radiological features along with quantitative analysis for the COVID-19 patients ready for discharge.

Methods: From February 10 to March 10, 2020, 125 COVID-19 patients (age: 16-67 years, 63 males) ready for discharge, with two consecutive negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and no clinical symptoms for more than 3 days, were included. The pre-discharge CT was performed on all patients 1-3 days after the second negative RT-PCR test, and the follow-up CTs were performed on 44 patients 2-13 days later. The imaging features and quantitative analysis were evaluated on both the pre-discharge and the follow-up CTs, by both radiologists and an artificial intelligence (AI) software.

Results: On the pre-discharge CT, the most common CT findings included ground-glass opacity (GGO) (99/125, 79.2%) with bilateral mixed distribution, and fibrosis (56/125, 44.8%) with bilateral subpleural distribution. Enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes were also commonly observed (45/125, 36.0%). AI enabled quantitative analysis showed the right lower lobe was mostly involved, and lesions most commonly had CT value of -570 to -470 HU consistent with GGO. Follow-up CT showed GGO decrease in size and density (40/40, 100%) and fibrosis reduction (17/26, 65.4%). Compared with the pre-discharge CT results, quantitative analysis shows the lung lesion volume regressed significantly at follow-up.

Conclusions: For COVID-19 patients ready for discharge, GGO and fibrosis are the main CT features and they further regress at follow-up.

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