Abstract
A total of 1,499 patients who underwent High Resolution Computed tomography (HRCT)
chest in the duration of 2 months for suspected COVID-19 pneumonia were included.
Subjects included were those who had tested positive for the virus on RT-PCR, those
with symptoms suspicious for COVID-19 infection awaiting results for the RT-PCR test
or with negative result but strong clinical suspicion as well as those with exposure
to proven patients based on contact tracing. Thus, both symptomatic as well as asymptomatic
patients were included. The positive predictive value of HRCT was 85%, sensitivity
was 73% for all patients. Overall, accuracy was 68%. There was no significant difference
in these values for symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. These results were also
independent of the time of scan from the onset of symptoms or contact. Thus, we propose
that HRCT is an excellent adjunct for initial diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia in both
symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals in addition to the role of prognostic indicator
for COVID-19 pneumonia.
Keywords
COVID-19 - diagnosis - high resolution computed tomography
