Validity of Initial Chest CT Scan in Novel Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) Patients as a Diagnostic Indicator

Abstract

OVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus. First case was reported in Wuhan –china in December 2019 before spreading. Current outbreak officially recognized as pandemic. COVID-19 typically presented with systemic and or/respiratory manifestation. Some also experience mild GIT or CVS symptoms but less common The typical chest CT imaging characteristics of COVID-19 include multiple, peripheral, bilateral, patchy, sub-segmental, or segmental ground glass opacities and areas of consolidation, which are mostly distributed along the bronco vascular bundles and sub- pleural space. The presence of associated interlobular septal thickening in the areas of ground glass opacity can give a crazy paving appearance. Air bronchograms with areas of consolidation and bronchial wall thickening are often present. More rarely, there is a thickening of the adjacent pleura or inter-lobar pleura, and a small amount of pleural effusion. There is no obvious lymphadenopathy. In currently available reports, the most common chest CT findings in COVID-19 patients are the peripheral areas of ground glass opacity/consolidation (without sub-pleural sparing) which are bilateral in distribution. The aim of the study is to evaluate the validity of chest CT in the diagnosis of COVID-19. To elucidate this aim, a number of 32 patients (21.8% were female and 78.1% were males) their ages ranged from 28 to 86 years with the mean age of the studied cases was 39.43± 12.19 y.