Comparison of chest CT images between confirmed and suspected cases of COVID 19/ Zhong Hua Fang She Xue Za Zhi
Objective To explore the value of chest CT features and clinical indexes in the differential diagnosis between suspected COVID 19 with two or more negative nucleic acid tests and confirmed COVID 19. Methods The clinical data and chest CT images of 105 cases withconfirmedCOVID 19 (55 males and 50 females, aged from 2 month to 88 years) and 97 cases with suspected COVID 19(59 males and 38 females, aged from 1 month to 93 years) were analyzed retrospectively in Shiyan Taihe Hospital from January 21 to February 10, 2020. kh2test and two independent sample t test were used to analyze the clinical data and CT signs of the two cases, with P<0.05 for the difference statistically significant. Results Compared with the suspected patients, the average age of diagnosis of covid 19 was higher (t 2.460, P 0.01) The main pathological changes were pure ground glass (68 cases) and mixed ground glass density (53 cases) (kh2 50.016, P< 0.01) Interstitial thickening (83 cases) (kh2 55.395, P< 0.01) vascular thickening (73 cases) (kh2 57.527, P< 0.01) air bronchoscopic sign or bronchiectasis Zhang (67 cases) (kh2 17.899, P< 0.01) cord focus (54 cases) (kh2 5.500, P 0.02) easily distributed under the pleura and the long axis of the lesion was parallel to the pleura (89 cases) (kh2 23.597, P< 0.01) most of them had no pleural effusion (kh2 7.017, P< 0.01) both lesions were mainly distributed in patches (89 cases were confirmed, 87 suspected) (kh2 19.573, P< 0.01) In addition, the lesions of patients with confirmed covid 19 showed progress in short term (72 87, 82.76% and those with suspected covid 19 showed remission in short term (63 89, 70.78% The difference was statistically significant (kh2 51.114, P< 0.01) There was no significant difference in gender and distribution of pulmonary lobes (kh2 1.462, P= 0.23; kh2 7.381, P= 0.19) The number of white blood cells (kh2 17.891, P< 0.01) and the percentage of lymphocytes (kh2 11.151,P< 0.01) of covid 19 were mostly normal or decreased, creatine kinase (kh2 9.589, P< 0.01) were mostly normal, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate was mostly normal or increased (kh2 4.240, P= 0.04) Conclusions The imaging features and biochemical indexes of diagnosed COVID 19 are different from those of suspected COVID 19. The comparative analysis of imaging features, clinical indexes and reexamination are helpful for the differential diagnosis of COVID 19 and suspected COVID 19. Key words: COVID 19; Tomography, X ray computed