Accuracy of Initial Chest Computed Tomography Scan for Diagnosis of COVID-19: A Systematic Review

Abstract

oronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS- COVID-19) with recent outbreak occurring on 11 March 2020. A computerized tomography (CT) scan for chest was proved to be a helpful tool for diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia. But little is known about its diagnostic accuracy. This systematic review aimed at determining current evidence regarding accuracy of initial chest CT scan for detection of COVID-19 infection. We conducted an electronic search through different databases; PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL). We included clinical trials whether prospective or retrospective cohorts, case control, cross sectional studies and case series larger than 10 cases). All studies that reported data about the diagnostic accuracy of initial chest CT for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection were enrolled. We evaluated the methodological quality for included studies using QUADAS-2 Risk of Bias tool. 47 studies met our inclusion criteria. We divided the identified studies into two groups: studies that reported both sensitivity and specificity (13 studies, number of patient = 7774) and studies that included only positive COVID-19 cases from which we could estimate only sensitivity (34 studies, number of patient = 3515).