Abstract :
Background: CT scoring helps to stratify patient’s risk and predict short-term outcome of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. we aim to assess the severity of COVID by examining the variations and degree of the pulmonary involvement on the HRCT thorax. We observed trend of increasing severity of COVID as predicted on HRCT in Eastern India population.
HRCT Thorax of 2000 consecutive COVID positive patients were analysed to look for the patterns of lung involvement and to calculate a CT severity score. The CT severity score was compared with laboratory parameters like D-Dimer, CRP, ESR, Procalcitonin, WBC and Lymphocyte count by Pearsons correlation analysis.
Results: Out of 2000 COVID positive patients 1220 (61%) patients were found to be radiologically positive on HRCT chest imaging while 780 patients (39%) had normal CT findings.Out of the 62 patients who died, 54 ( 87%) were having CTSS of > 15. Among the dead patient the prevalence of one or more comorbidities was significantly higher (49/62 patients, 79%) The proportion of patients having CT severity score between 16-25 (Severe patients) had increased from 4% in April-May to 27% in August.
Conclusion: Trend of severity among COVID patients increased as the months passed from April to August. Most of the deaths in our cohort were associated with pre-existing comorbidities suggesting that the COVID was not the sole cause of these deaths. Among the biochemical markers D-Dimer and CRP correlated well with the CT severity score.
Keyword :
COVID, Severity, CT severity score, Morbidity, Mortality