Covid-19: Correlation of Early Chest Computed Tomography Findings With the Course of Disease
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 11, 2025

Lung CT Segmentation to Identify Consolidations and Ground Glass Areas for Quantitative Assesment of SARS-CoV Pneumonia
Published on: December 19, 2020
Sukru Mehmet Erturk1, Gorkem Durak1, Hakan Ayyildiz1
1From the Department of Radiology.
Objective:
To investigate the role of chest computed tomography (CT) examinations acquired early after initial onset of symptoms in predicting disease course in coronavirus disease 2019.
Methods:
Two hundred sixty-two patients were categorized according to intensive care unit (ICU) admission, survival, length of hospital stay, and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction positivity. Mean time interval between the onset of symptoms and CT scan was 5.2 ± 2.3 days. Groups were compared using Student t test, Mann-Whitney U, and Fisher exact tests.
Results:
In the ICU (+) and died groups, crazy paving (64% and 57.1%), bronchus distortion (68% and 66.7%), bronchiectasis-bronchiolectasis (80% and 76.2%), air trapping (52% and 52.4%) and mediastinal-hilar lymph node enlargement (52% and 52.4%) were significantly more encountered (P < 0,05). These findings were correlated with longer hospital stays (P < 0.05). There were no differences between reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction-positive and -negative patients except bronchiectasis-bronchiolectasis.
Conclusion:
Computed tomography examinations performed early after the onset of symptoms may help in predicting disease course and planning of resources, such as ICU beds.
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