ABSTRACT
Background: Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has been at the center of researchers' attention from the beginning of the pandemic due to its global prevalence, and researchers have been conducting many studies and tried a variety of medicinal approaches to combat this pandemic. They aim to find a way to prevent or treat the condition. Every day brings fresh debates and developments, and social media abound with discussions and remarks associated with this global health challenge. Profiteers, on the other hand, promote false information among the public about the treatment of COVID-19 disease despite their limited scientific information and expertise. Several pharmaceutical companies commercialized their herbal-based products during the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditional medicine is mainly rooted in Iranian, Chinese, and Indian traditional medicine, acupuncture, and aromatherapy. A vast amount of information and treatment tactics has been spreading based on the theories in this field. However, in some cases, not only do these have no effect on disease treatment, but they can also have additional negative effects on the person's health and spread viruses even further. Therefore, more scientific studies are needed on the effects of traditional and alternative medicine on the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Studies performed in this regard have drawbacks, such as a lack of a control group, quality evidence, randomization, and blinding methods, as well as imprecise assessment indicators, and long-term follow-up period. A few of these claims and treatment approaches are discussed in the present study.
ABSTRACT
Background: Covid-19 epidemia is a worldwide infectious viral disease initiating from December 2019 from Wuhan, China. Recognition of the prognostic role of imaging findings is important to improve the outcomes in patients. Accordingly, regarding the lack of studies in this era among Iranian patients, this study was done to determine the association between CT scan findings and mortality in Covid-19 cases. Methods: In this prognostic prospective cohort study, 192 consecutive patients with established Covid-19 disease by clinical findings, and laboratory results in Besat Hospital, Tehran, Iran in March and April 2020 were enrolled. The findings in CT scan were involved zone and lobe, ground glass, consolidation, ground glass with reticular, reverse hallo sign, microvascular dilation sign, fibrotic streaks, sub pleural line, air bronchogram, Bronchus distortion, broncheiectasis, pleural thickening, pleural reaction, and pleural effusion. According to involvement degree the points in CT scan were 0, 1, and 2 for lack of lung parenchyma involvement, less than 50 percent involvement, and more than 50 percent involvement. Results: The involved zones were significantly differed between survived and dead cases (P=0.001). As shown in Table 4, the scores of CT scan for lung involvement and also number of involved lobes were differed across the alive and dead cases (P=0.001) the mean hospital stay was 7.1 (5.6) and 5.7 (2.5) days that was same across the groups (P=0.325). There were significant differences between groups for consolidation, ground glass plus reticular pattern, fibrotic streaks, sub-pleural line, air bronchogram, bronchiectasis, pleural thickening, pleural effusion, and pleural reaction (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Totally, according to the obtained results it may be concluded that CT scan is useful prognostic modality to predict the mortality among patients with Covid-19 disease. Consolidation, ground glass plus reticular pattern, fibrotic streaks, sub-pleural line, air bronchogram, bronchiectasis, pleural thickening, pleural effusion, and pleural reaction are the man CT scan findings predicting higher mortality rate in these patients.