Evaluation of Diagnostic Performance of Chest CT with RT-PCR in Suspected Coronavirus Patients in Bangladesh.

ABSTRACT

A cross sectional study was conducted to demonstrate the value of Computed Tomographic (CT) scan in clinically suspected 114 COVID-19 patients with emphasis on identifying and characterizing the most common findings of chest CT. The CT findings were compared and correlated with the results of Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction for corona virus disease. This study was conducted in the Department of Radiology and Imaging, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka with clinically COVID-19 suspected patients. This cross sectional study was performed from July 7 to August 7, 2020 where both chest HRCT and RT-PCR test were included, keeping RT-PCR as the reference standard. Of the 114 patients 104(91.22%) patients had ground glass opacities (with no consolidation), 50(43.85%) patients had ground glass opacity and consolidation. Along with ground glass opacities 60(52.63%) patients had associated crazy paving appearance, 44(39.59%) patients had reverse halo sign, 76(66.66%) patients had vascular thickening and 60(52.63%) patients had fibrotic shadows. Most patients (94%) (98/104) had bilateral chest CT findings. Out of 114 patients, 96 (84%) patients had positive RT-PCR results and 18(15.7%) patients had negative RT-PCR results. Out of 96 RT-PCR positive patients, 90 patients had positive chest CT findings, where was 06 patients had negative CT findings. On the other hand, out of 18 RT-PCR negative patients, 14 patients had positive chest CT findings while 4 patients had negative chest CT findings. To conclude, chest CT imaging has high sensitivity for diagnosis of COVID-19, Data and analysis from our study suggests that chest CT ought to be considered for the COVID-19 as a primary diagnostic tool for early detection of COVID-19 patients where awaited RT-PCR results.