Correlation between CT semi-quantitative evaluation and clinical staging of coronavirus disease 2019

Abstract:

Objective：To explore the correlation between the classification of chest CT semi-quantitative score and clinical classification of coronavirus disease 2019（COVID-19）. Methods：Clinical and imaging data of 71 patients with COVID-19 admitted to our hospital from January 2020 to February 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the diagnosis and treatment program of new coronavirus pneumonia（trail version 6），the patients were divided into the mild group（n=8），the common group（n=53），the severe group（n=8 cases） and the critical group（n=2）. Differences in laboratory results of patients with different clinical classification were compared，and patients’ CT image manifestations were compared. Semi-quantitative scoring was performed according to the location，extent，and density，and the pulmonary inflammation index（PII） was calculated and divided into five grades，and correlation between the pulmonary inflammation index classification and clinical classification was analyzed. Results：The main clinical symptoms of COVID-19 were fever（n=49） and cough（n=43 cases），etc.. Analysis of laboratory examination results showed that different clinical types were associated with lymphocyte count，C-reactive protein，erythrocyte sedimentation rate and procalcitonin，with statistically significant differences（P<0.05）. In CT findings，there were 8 mild cases（100%） in PII grade 0 group，34 common cases（97.1%） and 1 severe case（2.9%） in the PII grade Ⅰ group，17 common cases（94.4%） and 1 severe case（5.6%） in the PII grade Ⅱ group，2 common cases（28.6%） and 5 severe cases（71.4%） in the PII grade Ⅲ group，and 1 severe case（33.3%） and 2 critical cases（66.7%） in the PII grade Ⅳ group，with statistically significant difference（P<0.05）. CT pulmonary inflammatory index grade was positively correlated with clinical classification，and the correlation coeffi－cient was r=0.75. Conclusion：Chest CT semi-quantitative score and classification of patients with COVID-19 have good corre－lation with clinical classification，which has guiding significance for clinical diagnosis and treatment.