A Retrospective Correlation study between HRCT Thorax finding and Severity of Disease in Covid-19 positive Patients at time of admission to Hospital.

Abstract

Background : India had reported the 1st case of novel corona virus (COVID-19) on 30 January 2020.Since then
there is constantly and rapidly increasing number of cases. So clinical and radiological findings are needed to be
studied and explored so that the physicians, radiologist and researchers could gain proper information and
guidelines to save more lives. Objective: To analyze COVID-19 patients for determining the correlation between
HRCT (High Resolution Computed tomography) thorax finding and severity of disease on admission. Materials
and Methods: To provide extensive information pertaining clinical and radiological characteristics of COVID-19,
a retrospective study was conducted including 100 consecutive hospitalized patients at GMERS Medical College
and General Hospital Himmatnagar. The study was done by ENT department; under guidance and support of
Medicine and Radiology department. The patients were confirmed cases of disease positive by RT-PCR test.
Patients' demographics, comorbidities, clinical findings, chest CT results were recorded. The CT findings were
correlated with clinical data. Results: According to the data, old age (45-65 years) people with most common
comorbidity like hypertension were most affected. Fever was the commonest symptom seen among the
patients.3,32,51,14 patients were categorized into mild, moderate, severe and critical groups according to clinical
severity respectively. 4, 37, 54 and 5 patients were radiologically categorized correspondingly to grade 0, grade 1,
grade 2 and grade 3. Ground glass opacity was the main pulmonary manifestation with bilateral distribution. The
statistical result was kappa =0.632 and P<0.05. So it was statistical significant and there was a positive correlation
between Ct findings and clinical severity of disease. Conclusions: Deformities on HRCT Thorax can occur in an
early stage of COVID-19 patients, even when RT-PCR results are negative, which can be used in early recognition
& evaluation with prompt management of disease.