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Chest CT findings of COVID-19 pneumonia by duration of symptoms.
Eur J Radiol. 2020 Jun;127:109009
Authors: Ding X, Xu J, Zhou J, Long Q
Abstract
PURPOSE: To evaluate lung abnormalities on thin-section computed tomographic (CT) scans in patients with COVID-19 and correlate findings to duration of symptoms.
METHODS: In total, 348 CT scans in 112 patients were classified according to the time after the onset of the initial symptoms, namely stage-1 (0-4 days); stage-2 (5-9 days); stage-3 (10-14 days); stage-4 (15-21 days); stage-5 (22-28 days); and stage-6 (＞28 days). Each lung lobe was evaluated for extent affected by ground-glass opacities (GGO), crazy-paving pattern and consolidation, in five categories of percentual severity. Summation of scores from all five lung lobes provided the total CT score (maximal CT score, 25).
RESULTS: The predominant patterns of lung abnormalities were GGOs, crazy-paving pattern, consolidation and linear opacities. The frequency of crazy-paving pattern, consolidation and linear opacities peaked at stage-3 (62.7 %), stage-4 (75.0 %) and stage-5 (83.1 %), respectively, and decreased thereafter. Total CT scores increased from stage-1 to stage-2 (2.8 ± 3.1, vs. 6.5 ± 4.6, respectively, P < 0.01), and thereafter remained high. The lower lobes were more inclined to be involved with higher CT scores except for stage-1. At stage-6 98.1 % of CT scans still showed abnormalities (CT score 7.5 ± 4.1).
CONCLUSION: Thin-section CT could provide semi-quantitative analysis of pulmonary damage severity. This disease changed rapidly at the early stage, then tended to be stable and lasted for a long time.
PMID: 32325282 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]