Quantitative Assessment of Lung Volumes and Enhancement in Patients with COVID-19: Role of Dual-Energy CT

Dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) has been used for detecting pulmonary embolism, but the role of lung perfusion DECT as a predictor of prognosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has not been defined yet. The aim of our study was to explore whether the enhancement pattern in COVID-19+ patients relates to the disease outcome. A secondary aim was to compare the lung volumes in two subgroups of patients. In this observational study, we considered all consecutive COVID-19+ patients who presented to the emergency room between January 2021 and December 2021 with respiratory symptoms (with mild to absent lung consolidation) and were studied by chest contrast-enhanced DECT to be eligible. Two experienced radiologists post-processed the images using the "lung-analysis" software (SyngoVia). Absolute and relative enhancement lung volumes were assessed. Patients were stratified in two subgroups depending on clinical outcome at 30 days: (i) good outcome (i.e., discharge, absence of clinical or imaging signs of disease); (ii) bad outcome (i.e., hospitalization, death). Patient sub-groups were compared using chi-square test or Fisher test for qualitative parameters, chi-square test or Spearman's Rho test for quantitative parameters, Students' t-test for parametric variables and Wilcoxon test for non-parametric variables. We enrolled 78 patients (45M), of whom, 16.7% had good outcomes. We did not observe any significant differences between the two groups, both in terms of the total enhancement evaluation (p = 0.679) and of the relative enhancement (p = 0.918). In contrast, the average lung volume of good outcome patients (mean value of 4262 mL) was significantly larger than that of bad outcome patients (mean value of 3577.8 mL), p = 0.0116. All COVID-19+ patients, with either good or bad outcomes, presented similar enhancement parameters and relative enhancements, underlining no differences in lung perfusion. Conversely, a significant drop in lung volume was identified in the bad outcome subgroup eligible compared to the good outcome subgroup.