CHEST COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF SARS COV-2 PNEUMONIA

Abstract

Background: The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 has contributed to the search for available diagnostic methods with high sensitivity and specificity, taking into account factors affecting the accuracy of the COVID-19 diagnostic method in outpatients

Method: Observation study performed in the Polyclinic during the peak of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron in the city of Almaty in 2022. 380 patients were selected with typical symptoms complaints. All patients underwent the study to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus by qualitative determination of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus RNA in nasopharyngeal cell scrapings using real-time polymerase chain reaction, computed tomography of the chest as well as laboratory tests of predictor’s inflammation.

Results: According to the results of computed tomography, 85 (22.4%) patients had lung damage characteristic of pneumonia, P value 0.0001. The sensitivity of the chest computed tomography method in the diagnosis of pneumonia - 27.9%, the specificity - 85.5%, the prevalence of pneumonia among all selected patients - 52.9%. However, stratification of patients and elimination of mild subclinical cases made it possible to determine the sensitivity – 94.6%, the specificity - 100.0% of the chest computed tomography method, the prevalence of pneumonia was 26.8%. This is due to the predominance of patients with the subclinical course of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron - 298 (78.4%), p value 0.0001, as well as patients of the young and middle age group up to 60 years old - 221 (58.2%), p value 0.0003.

Conclusions: The method of computed tomography is an additional diagnostic method for SARS-CoV-2 to determine the extent of lung damage.