Pulmonary cavitation: an under-recognized late complication of severe COVID-19 lung disease

  1. Zaid Zoumot
  2. Maria-Fernanda Bonilla
  3. Ali S. Wahla
  4. Irfan Shafiq
  5. Mateen Uzbeck
  6. Rania M. El-Lababidi
  7. Fadi Hamed
  8. Mohamed Abuzakouk
  9. Mahmoud ElKaissi

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Abstract

Background

Pulmonary radiological findings of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been well documented and range from scattered ground-glass infiltrates in milder cases to confluent ground-glass change, dense consolidation, and crazy paving in the critically ill. However, lung cavitation has not been commonly described in these patients. The objective of this study was to assess the incidence of pulmonary cavitation in patients with COVID-19 and describe its characteristics and evolution.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective review of all patients admitted to our institution with COVID-19 and reviewed electronic medical records and imaging to identify patients who developed pulmonary cavitation.

Results

Twelve out of 689 (1.7%) patients admitted to our institution with COVID-19 developed pulmonary cavitation, comprising 3.3% (n = 12/359) of patients who developed COVID-19 pneumonia, and 11% (n = 12/110) of those admitted to the intensive care unit. We describe the imaging characteristics of the cavitation and present the clinical, pharmacological, laboratory, and microbiological parameters for these patients. In this cohort six patients have died, and six discharged home.

Conclusion

Cavitary lung disease in patients with severe COVID-19 disease is not uncommon, and is associated with a high level of morbidity and mortality.

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  1. Version published to 10.1186/s12890-020-01379-1
  2. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-62904/v4 on Research Square
  3. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-62904/v3 on Research Square
  4. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-62904/v2 on Research Square
  5. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-62904/v1 on Research Square
  6. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.15.20175869: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    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: 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.

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  7. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.15.20175869v1 on medRxiv