A protocol of low dose chest ct to verify suspected covid-19 infection

ABSTRACT

Chest CT scanning is significant in verifying COVID-19 infection in patients with clinical symptoms, although CT scanning uses ionizing radiation. So we aim to investigate the demonstration of relevance and accuracy of chest tomography using a low-dose protocol compared to the standard auto-modulation protocol of 50 – 210 mAs. Moreover, to assess whether any distinguishing signs in patients might help determine the severity of the respiratory infection from COVID-19. A standard auto-modulation protocol of 50 – 210 mAs was performed for all patients (120 patients), Rotation time 0.5 second. Of the 120 patients whose CT scan showed signs of COVID-19 infection, 47 patients aged over 50 years were selected. Low dose CT scanning (30 mAs) was performed on these patients immediately. Of the 120 patients over the age of 50 with COVID-19 according to a PCR underwent a CT chest, only 47 showed signs of COVID-19.When compared to standard-dose, low-dose demonstrated excellent sensitivity in detecting typical findings of COVID-19 (coefficient of significance (C.S) = 0.98–0.99, P-values <0.05 one reader and P-values < 0.01 two readers). The mean effective dose values were 6.32±2.82 and 1.45±0.29mSvin the stander and low-dose, respectively.A low dose protocol can be used with high reliability and accuracy to reduce the ionizing radiation risks in the state of reproducible assessment. On the other hand, we emphasize there are indicators with high reliability of a relationship between infection with COVID-19 and its severity and the work nature, environment, age, body mass index (BMI) and Patient Health Status.