Computed Tomography Findings and Short-term follow-up with Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia

  1. Shi Qi
  2. Hui Guo
  3. Hua Shao
  4. Siqin Lan
  5. Yuanlin He
  6. Maijudan Tiheiran
  7. Hongjun Li

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Abstract

Objective

To assess the characteristics of computed tomography (CT) features and changes in CT monitoring in patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP).

Methods

In this retrospective, two-center study, we reviewed the medical records of 57 patients with NCP in CT from January 21 to February 12, 2020. Cases were confirmed by the results of nucleic acid test positive, and were analyzed for demographic, clinical, and CT features.

Results

Of the 57 patients, 31cases were male, and 45.6% were female. The average age was 46.5 ± 15.8 years. Patients had fever (84.2%), cough (49.1%), weak (31.6%), muscle ache (17.5%), shortness of breath (12.3%). The distribution of abnormality was a subpleural lesions in 51 cases, with 96.5% ground-glass opacity (GGO) and 68.4% consolidation. Another observation reveals 45.6% fibrosis, 33.3% lymph node enlargement, 21.1% pleural thickening, 17.5% small nodule, 7.0% white lung, 5.3% emphysema, and 3.5% bronchiectasis. Importantly, the group of men had more septal thickening and air trapping than the female group (p<0.05); Compared with the younger, the elderly had higher of subpleural lesion, interlobular septal thickening and pleural thickening (p<0.05). In the first monitoring, there were 37.3% improvement, 60.8% progress. In the second monitoring, there were 55% improvement, 35% progress. The improvement rate during the third follow-up visit was 100%.

Conclusions

CT features and CT dynamic observation play a vital role in the diagnosis and treatment with NCP. It is conducive to early diagnosis, deepen the knowledge of NCP and accumulate experience.

Key points

Bilateral and subpleural regions on CT are common in patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP), which were more extensive GGOs than consolidation.

At CT, NCP shows GGOs without or with consolidation, which most of the patients appear interlobular interstitium thickening, vascular bundle thickening, air bronchogram, and fibrosis. In patients with fever in close contact with eruption areas of 2019-nCoV, familiarity with the CT findings may help with early diagnosis, early isolation, and management.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.02.20042614: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Ethical Review Committee of the First Affiliated Hospita of Xinjiang Medical University (No.2020120-06).
    Consent: The present study abandoned the need for individual consent for retrospective observation studies.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The present study is not without limitations. This study is a retrospective study of patients assessed by the two centers, including all selection questions and observation bias. Secondly, we need to further study the changes of a bigger sample in the CT features and CT follow-up with NCP. In summary, CT characteristics and CT dynamic observation play a vital role in diagnosis and treatment with NCP, which is conducive to early diagnosis of the disease, our further understanding of the disease, and accumulation of experience.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.02.20042614v1 on medRxiv