Radiological Imaging of Viral Pneumonia Cases Identified Before the COVİD-19 Pandemic Period and COVİD-19 Pneumonia Cases Comparison of Characteristics

  1. Rana Günöz Cömert
  2. Eda Cingöz
  3. Sevim Meşe
  4. Görkem Durak
  5. Atadan Tunacı
  6. Ali Ağaçfidan
  7. Mustafa Önel
  8. Şükrü Mehmet Ertürk

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Abstract

Background

Thoracic CT imaging is widely used as a diagnostic method in the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia. Radiological differential diagnosis and isolation of other viral agents causing pneumonia in patients gained importance, especially during the pandemic period.

Aims

We aimed to investigate whether there is a difference between the CT imaging findings characteristically defined in COVID-19 pneumonia and the findings detected in pneumonia due to other viral agents, and which finding may be more effective in the diagnosis.

Study Design

The study included 249 adult patients with pneumonia found in thorax CT examination and positive COVID-19 RT-PCR test and 94 patients diagnosed with non-COVID pneumonia (viral PCR positive, no bacterial/fungal agents were detected in other cultures) from the last 5 years before the pandemic. It was retrospectively analyzed using the PACS System. CT findings were evaluated by two radiologists with 5 and 20 years of experience who did not know to which group the patient belonged, and it was decided by consensus.

Methods

Demographic data (age, gender, known chronic disease) and CT imaging findings (percentage of involvement, number of lesions, distribution preference, dominant pattern, ground-glass opacity distribution pattern, nodule, tree in bud sign, interstitial changes, crazy paving sign, reversed halo sign, vacuolar sign, halo sign, vascular enlargement, linear opacities, traction bronchiectasis, peribronchial wall thickness, air trapping, pleural retraction, pleural effusion, pericardial effusion, cavitation, mediastinal/hilar lymphadenopathy, dominant lesion size, consolidation, subpleural curvilinear opacities, air bronchogram, pleural thickening) of the patients were evaluated. CT findings were also evaluated with the RSNA consensus guideline and the CORADS scoring system. Data were divided into two main groups as non-COVID-19 and COVID-19 pneumonia and compared statistically with chi-square tests and multiple regression analysis of independent variables.

Results

Two main groups; RSNA and CORADS classification, percentage of involvement, number of lesions, distribution preference, dominant pattern, nodule, tree in bud, interstitial changes, crazy paving, reverse halo vascular enlargement, peribronchial wall thickness, air trapping, pleural retraction, pleural/pericardial effusion, cavitation and mediastinal/hilar lymphadenopathy were compared, significant differences were found between the groups (p < 0.01). Multiple linear regression analysis of independent variables found a significant effect of reverse halo sign (β = 0.097, p <0.05) and pleural effusion (β = 10.631, p <0.05) on COVID-19 pneumonia.

Conclusion

Presence of reverse halo and absence of pleural effusion was found to be efficient in the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.11.22274305: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot 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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.05.11.22274305v1 on medRxiv