Increased Radiation Dose Exposure in Thoracic Computed Tomography in Patients with Covid-19

ABSTRACT

Simple SummaryThe diagnostic imaging with a chest CT in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia is the key point for early screening, differential diagnosis, staging, the severity of the disease and to plan the possible therapy in the intensive care unit. The evolution of pulmonary changes in this setting requires multiple CT scans in a short period, especially for severe illness. The aim of this study is to assess if there was a variation dose in chest CT scans in COVID-19 patients compared to a cohort with pulmonary infectious diseases at the same time of the previous year to value if there is any modification of exposure dose. We compared 1660 chest CT scans of 597 COVID-19 patients with those of patients hospitalized for infectious respiratory diseases in the same period of the previous year. Our results show that COVID-19 patients are exposed to a higher dose of radiation than other patients, especially in the younger age groups.The CT manifestation of COVID-19 patients is now well known and essentially reflects pathological changes in the lungs. Actually, there is insufficient knowledge on the long-term outcomes of this new disease, and several chest CTs might be necessary to evaluate the outcomes. The aim of this study is to evaluate the radiation dose for chest CT scans in COVID-19 patients compared to a cohort with pulmonary infectious diseases at the same time of the previous year to value if there is any modification of exposure dose. The analysis of our data shows an increase in the overall mean dose in COVID-19 patients compared with non-COVID-19 patients. In our results, the higher dose increase occurs in the younger age groups (+86% range 21–30 years and +67% range 31–40 years). Our results show that COVID-19 patients are exposed to a significantly higher dose of ionizing radiation than other patients without COVID infectious lung disease, and especially in younger age groups, although some authors have proposed the use of radiotherapy in these patients, which is yet to be validated. Our study has limitations: the use of one CT machine in a single institute and a limited number of patients.