scholarly journals Correlations Between Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics, Laboratory Tests and CT Scan Reports in the Diagnosis of COVID-19: A Diagnostic Accuracy Study

Author(s):  
Bobby Branson ◽  
Ramin Tavakoli ◽  
Mansoor Khaledi ◽  
Javad Fathi ◽  
Seyed Mohammad Shafiee ◽  
...  

Although the relationship between laboratory parameters, radiology, CT scan scan and clinical outcomes has not been well evaluated so far, COVID-19 is still a good challenge for this purpose. These tests can be used to diagnose, monitor, and treat COVID-19. The study was conducted from February 20 to August 31, 2020, following the referral of 340 patients with coronavirus symptoms at Chamran Hospital, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Clinical information of each patient is obtained based on patient information forms when visiting the hospital. Comparison of the relationship between lung involvement in CT scan and laboratory indicators, including biochemical and hematological factors is a suitable and reliable comparison to identify people with Covid 19. Based on the results of this study, it was found that ALT, AST, CRP, NEU, LDH, and Urea could be a suitable diagnostic method in positive RT-PCR for COVID-19. In this study, we tried to investigate the relationship between clinical and laboratory findings with CT-based quantitative score of pulmonary involvement in COVID-19 pneumonia and as a suitable and reliable method in continuing COVID-19 pandemic and diagnosis of COVID-19 infection.

Author(s):  
Bobby Branson ◽  
Ramin Tavakoli ◽  
Mansoor Khaledi ◽  
Seyed Mohammad Shafiee ◽  
Hamed Afkham ◽  
...  

Background: The role of laboratory parameters and the relationship of them with radiology reports, CT scan and clinical outcomes in screening of COVID-19 patients not been definitely established, but this disease presented a major challenge in the field of clinical tests, radiology reports, clinical outcomes that help to monitoring and treatment COVID-19 disease. Methods: This study was performed on 340 suspected COVID-19 patients, who presented to Chamran Hospital, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences Shiraz, Iran from 20 February to 31 August, 2020. Information each patient’s will be completed using a data collection forms based on records. The evaluation of lungs involvement in CT scan and their relationship with laboratory indicator including biochemical and hematological factors, is the best scale for the severity and prognosis of Covid 19 patients. Results and Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated ALT, AST, CRP, NEU, LDH, and Urea have very good accuracy in predicting cases with positive RT-PCR for COVID-19, respectively. In this study we shown the correlation of clinical and laboratory findings with CT-based quantitative score of pulmonary involvement in COVID-19 pneumonia and attempted that our findings could be usable to development future clinical research associated with COVID-19 infection and show the relationship of reports CT scan and clinical outcomes in the diagnosis and severity of patients with COVID-19.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Honghui Wang ◽  
Xueping Gu ◽  
Huiyuan Li ◽  
Lingmei Yin ◽  
Wei Tao ◽  
...  

Background. sCD30 and sCD26 are correlated with autoimmune diseases. However, little research has been done on the relationship between them and primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Methods. This study enrolled 47 patients diagnosed with ITP in the Institute of Hematology and Blood Disease Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (Tianjin, China), from January 2015 to August 2015. The peripheral blood of all subjects was collected. The mRNA expression of CD30 was quantified by RT-PCR, and concentrations of sCD30 and sCD26 were measured by ELISA. Patient characteristics, CD30 mRNA levels, and sCD30 and sCD26 concentrations were analyzed. Results. The concentration of sCD30 was higher in active ITP patients (median, 35.82 ng/mL) than in remission ITP patients (median, 23.12 ng/mL; P=0.021) and healthy controls (median, 25.11 ng/mL; P=0.002). Plasma sCD26 levels decreased in remission ITP patients compared with that in healthy controls (median, 599.4 ng/mL vs. 964.23 ng/mL; P=0.004). Ratios of sCD26/sCD30 in active ITP patients decreased compared with those in controls (P=0.005). Increased sCD30 was positively correlated with hemorrhage (r=0.493, P=0.017) in ITP patients while little relationship was identified between sCD26 and ITP. Conclusion. Since sCD30 levels and sCD26/sCD30 ratios may contribute to the activity of the disease, they may be used to assess ITP disease activity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Volpicelli ◽  
Luciano Cardinale ◽  
Thomas Fraccalini ◽  
Marco Calandri ◽  
Clara Piatti ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Lung ultrasound (LUS) and chest radiography (CXR) are the most used chest imaging tools in the early diagnosis of COVID-19 associated pneumonia. However, the relationship between LUS and CXR is not clearly defined. The aim of our study was to describe the comparison between LUS interpretation and CXR readings in the first approach to patients suspected of COVID-19. Methods In the time of the first COVID-19 pandemic surge, we prospectively evaluated adult patients presenting to an emergency department complaining of symptoms raising suspicion of COVID-19. Patients were studied by LUS and only those performing also CXR were analyzed. All the patients performed viral reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). LUS studies were classified in 4 categories of probabilities, based on the presence of typical or alternative signs of COVID-19-associated interstitial pneumonia. Accordingly, the CXR readings were retrospectively adapted by 2 experts in 4 categories following the standard language that describes the computed tomography (CT) findings. Patients were divided in two groups, based on the agreement of the LUS and CXR categories. Results were also compared to RT-PCR and, when available, to CT studies. Results We analyzed 139 cases (55 women, mean age 59.1 ± 15.5 years old). The LUS vs CXR results disagreed in 60 (43.2%) cases. RT-PCR was positive in 88 (63.3%) cases. In 45 cases, a CT scan was also performed and only 4 disagreed with LUS interpretation versus 24 in the comparison between CT and CXR. In 18 cases, LUS detected signs of COVID-19 pneumonia (high and intermediate probabilities) while CXR reading was negative; in 14 of these cases, a CT scan or a RT-PCR-positive result confirmed the LUS interpretation. In 6 cases, LUS detected signs of alternative diagnoses to COVID-19 pneumonia while CXR was negative; in 4 of these cases, CT scan confirmed atypical findings. Conclusion Our study demonstrated a strong disagreement between LUS interpretation and CXR reading in the early approach to patients suspected of COVID-19. Comparison with CT studies and RT-PCR results seems to confirm the superiority of LUS over a second retrospective reading of CXR.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pinto F ◽  
◽  
De Rosa G ◽  
Carfora M ◽  
di Nuzzo L ◽  
...  

COVID-19 pneumonia is a highly contagious viral pneumonia spread worldwide, caused by SARS-CoV-2. Adults may be more susceptible to disease, especially in those with comorbidities while young people show milder signs of the disease. Between January 1st and February 28th 2021, seven consecutive patients, ranging from 26 to 41 years, were admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of COVID disease confirmed by a RT-PCR swab test. On HRCT, a Severity Index Score was performed to estimate pulmonary involvement. Focusing our attention on anterior mediastinum, we found that five of the seven cases enrolled had thymic gland. Two patients had not thymic gland. In our preliminary experience, five patients who had thymic gland showed a mild or negative clinical and radiological COVID-19 pneumonia. Instead, two patients who experienced severe COVID-19 pneumonia did not show the thymic gland. Further studies carried out prospectively are needed in order to exceed the limitations of this study and to ascertain the relationship between the persistence of the thymic gland as a protective factor against severe forms of COVID-19 pneumonia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Hasan Israfil ◽  
Md. Moklesur Rahman Sarker ◽  
Parisa Tamannur Rashid ◽  
Ali Azam Talukder ◽  
Khandkar Ali Kawsar ◽  
...  

Clinical characteristics are essential for the correct diagnosis of diseases. The current review aimed to summarize the global clinical characteristics of the COVID-19 patients systematically and identify their diagnostic challenges to help the medical practitioners properly diagnose and for better management of COVID-19 patients. We conducted a systematic search in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases for original articles containing clinical information of COVID-19 published up to 7th May 2020. Two researchers independently searched the databases to extract eligible articles. A total of 34 studies from 8 different countries with 10889 case-patients were included for clinical characteristics. The most common clinical symptoms were cough 59.6, fever 46.9, fatigue 27.8, and dyspnea 20.23%. The prominent laboratory findings were lymphocytopenia 55.9, elevated levels of CRP 61.9, aspartate aminotransferase 53.3, LDH 40.8, ESR 72.99, serum ferritin 63, IL-6 52, and prothrombin time 35.47%, and decreased levels of platelets 17.26, eosinophils 59.0, hemoglobin 29, and albumin 38.4%. CT scan of the chest showed an abnormality in 93.50% cases with bilateral lungs 71.1%, ground-glass opacity 48%, lesion in lungs 78.3%, and enlargement of lymph node 50.7%. Common comorbidities were hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. The estimated median incubation period was 5.36 days, and the overall case fatality rate was 16.9% (Global case fatality outside China was 22.24%: USA 21.24%, Italy 25.61%, and others 0%; whereas the case fatality inside the Hubei Province of China was found to be 11.71%). Global features on the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 obtained from laboratory tests and CT scan results will provide useful information to the physicians to diagnose the disease and for better management of the patients as well as to address the diagnostic challenges to control the infection.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S277-S277
Author(s):  
Rachel Gibbs ◽  
Lung H Fu ◽  
Michael Silver ◽  
Zachary S Lockerman ◽  
Monica Ghitan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the early weeks of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in New York City posed unique challenges. Due to inadequate testing availability and long turnaround times, decisions on which patients to isolate were problematic. With sensitivity comparable to reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), the absence of ground glass opacities (GGOs) on chest CT scan was useful to rule out COVID-19. We evaluated the specificity of chest CT scan findings for COVID-19 along with other clinical and laboratory findings. Methods A retrospective chart review was done of 182 adult patients who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR and underwent a chest CT scan while admitted to Maimonides Medical Center between March 1 to 23, 2020. Cases were defined as those with a positive RT-PCR result or who were treated for COVID-19. Negative cases were defined as those with negative RT-PCR and an alternative diagnosis confirmed by an ID physician. Beyond March 23, almost all newly admitted patients were isolated. Results There were 111 COVID-19 positive and 71 COVID-19 negative patients. Of the COVID-19 patients, 61% were male and 39% female, 56% white, 20% Hispanic, 14% black, 9% Asian, 36% Jewish, 35% had diabetes mellitus (DM), 50% had hypertension and 42% had cardiovascular disease. Clinical symptoms, signs, and laboratory values for COVID-19 positive and negative groups were not significantly different. COVID-19 patients had significantly higher BMI (p = 0.001). On chest CT scan, bilateral or unilateral, peripheral distribution and lower lobar GGOs were over 80% specific for COVID-19. The frequency of GGOs was significantly higher when chest CT scans were done during the second week of illness compared to the first week (p = 0.0195). Jewish patients were associated with higher rates of death (p = 0.0475) and underlying DM was associated with higher rates of ARDS, AKI, intubation, ICU admission and death (p < 0.05) compared to other demographic and comorbid groups. Conclusion Chest CT scan is an important component in the diagnostic process for patients with suspected COVID-19 infection, especially during the second week of symptoms. The findings may aid clinical decisions in the setting of a second surge of SARS-CoV-2. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures


2021 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 815-822
Author(s):  
Joanne Guerlain ◽  
Fabienne Haroun ◽  
Alexandra Voicu ◽  
Charles Honoré ◽  
Franck Griscelli ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 2953
Author(s):  
Tzu-Chen Lo ◽  
Yu-Yen Chen

This study aimed to achieve a better understanding of the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We searched PubMed and Embase between December 2019 and March 2021 and included only peer-reviewed clinical studies or case series. The proportions of patients who had conjunctivitis, systemic symptoms/signs (s/s), Kawasaki disease (KD), and exposure history to suspected/confirmed COVID-19 cases were obtained. Moreover, positive rates of the nasopharyngeal real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and serum antibody for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were recorded. Overall, 32 studies with 1458 patients were included in the pooled analysis. Around half of the patients had conjunctivitis. The five most common systemic manifestations were fever (96.4%), gastrointestinal s/s (76.7%), shock (61.5%), rash (57.1%), and neurological s/s (36.8%). Almost one-third presented complete KD and about half had exposure history to COVID-19 cases. The positivity of the serology (82.2%) was higher than that of the nasopharyngeal RT-PCR (37.0%). MIS-C associated with COVID-19 leads to several features similar to KD. Epidemiological and laboratory findings suggest that post-infective immune dysregulation may play a predominant role. Further studies are crucial to elucidate the underlying pathogenesis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Khatami ◽  
Mohammad Saatchi ◽  
Seyed Saeed Tamehri Zadeh ◽  
Zahra Sadat Aghamir ◽  
Alireza Namazi Shabestari ◽  
...  

AbstractNowadays there is an ongoing acute respiratory outbreak caused by the novel highly contagious coronavirus (COVID-19). The diagnostic protocol is based on quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and chests CT scan, with uncertain accuracy. This meta-analysis study determines the diagnostic value of an initial chest CT scan in patients with COVID-19 infection in comparison with RT-PCR. Three main databases; PubMed (MEDLINE), Scopus, and EMBASE were systematically searched for all published literature from January 1st, 2019, to the 21st May 2020 with the keywords "COVID19 virus", "2019 novel coronavirus", "Wuhan coronavirus", "2019-nCoV", "X-Ray Computed Tomography", "Polymerase Chain Reaction", "Reverse Transcriptase PCR", and "PCR Reverse Transcriptase". All relevant case-series, cross-sectional, and cohort studies were selected. Data extraction and analysis were performed using STATA v.14.0SE (College Station, TX, USA) and RevMan 5. Among 1022 articles, 60 studies were eligible for totalizing 5744 patients. The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of chest CT scan compared to RT-PCR were 87% (95% CI 85–90%), 46% (95% CI 29–63%), 69% (95% CI 56–72%), and 89% (95% CI 82–96%), respectively. It is important to rely on the repeated RT-PCR three times to give 99% accuracy, especially in negative samples. Regarding the overall diagnostic sensitivity of 87% for chest CT, the RT-PCR testing is essential and should be repeated to escape misdiagnosis.


Author(s):  
Ali H. Elmokadem ◽  
Dalia Bayoumi ◽  
Sherif A. Abo-Hedibah ◽  
Ahmed El-Morsy

Abstract Background To evaluate the diagnostic performance of chest CT in differentiating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and non-COVID-19 causes of ground-glass opacities (GGO). Results A total of 80 patients (49 males and 31 females, 46.48 ± 16.09 years) confirmed with COVID-19 by RT-PCR and who underwent chest CT scan within 2 weeks of symptoms, and 100 patients (55 males and 45 females, 48.94 ± 18.97 years) presented with GGO on chest CT were enrolled in the study. Three radiologists reviewed all CT chest exams after removal of all identifying data from the images. They expressed the result as positive or negative for COVID-19 and recorded the other pulmonary CT features with mention of laterality, lobar affection, and distribution pattern. The clinical data and laboratory findings were recorded. Chest CT offered diagnostic accuracy ranging from 59 to 77.2% in differentiating COVID-19- from non-COVID-19-associated GGO with sensitivity from 76.25 to 90% and specificity from 45 to 67%. The specificity was lower when differentiating COVID-19 from non-COVID-19 viral pneumonias (30.5–61.1%) and higher (53.1–70.3%) after exclusion of viral pneumonia from the non-COVID-19 group. Patients with COVID-19 were more likely to have lesions in lower lobes (p = 0.005), peripheral distribution (p < 0.001), isolated ground-glass opacity (p = 0.043), subpleural bands (p = 0.048), reverse halo sign (p = 0.005), and vascular thickening (p = 0.013) but less likely to have pulmonary nodules (p < 0.001), traction bronchiectasis (p = 0.005), pleural effusion (p < 0.001), and lymphadenopathy (p < 0.001). Conclusions Chest CT offered reasonable sensitivity when differentiating COVID-19- from non-COVID-19-associated GGO with low specificity when differentiating COVID-19 from other viral pneumonias and moderate specificity when differentiating COVID-19 from other causes of GGO.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document