An article in the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) discusses how updated CT scoring criteria that considers lobe involvement, and other changes, could help clinicians to evaluate the progression of pneumonia resulting from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Lead author, Guoquan Huang of Wuhu Second People's Hospital in China, says, “The earlier that COVID-19 is diagnosed and treated, the shorter the time to disease resolution and the lower the highest and last CT scores are.”
Huang and his colleagues assigned CT scores to 25 patients according to CT findings and lung involvement. The scientists tracked the time it took from the onset of symptoms to diagnosis to treatment for each patient. The researchers divided the COVID-19 patients into two groups: one where the time from onset to treatment was less than three days and one where it was greater than three days.
The two groups had very different results. The first group’s highest CT score was 10, compared to a high of 16 for the second group. And, the time for disease resolution was also vastly different, with the first group taking six days and the second group taking 13 days. As Huang explains, “Sequential chest CT examinations enable qualitative investigation of alterations in COVID-19 infection during the course of treatment.”
Huang and his colleagues feel that the previous CT scoring criteria for lobe involvement were not accurate enough to evaluate the progression of pneumonia resulting from COVID-19.
"In the present study, " wrote Huang, "we propose a new version of CT scoring criteria that considers both lobe involvement and changes in CT findings, in an attempt to more comprehensively evaluate COVID-19 pneumonia on sequential chest CT examinations."