Diagnostic value of ground-glass opacities on computed tomography combined with computed tomography re-examination in patients with suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia

This study aimed to determine the diagnostic value of ground-glass opacities on computed tomography combined with computed tomography re-examination in patients with suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia.

Suspected cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia were identified retrospectively between January 23 and February 18, 2020. Computed tomography examination was conducted for all patients. For all suspected cases, real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction detection of novel coronavirus nucleic acid was conducted. Computed tomography re-examination in the short term was also performed.

Among 92 patients suspected with novel coronavirus pneumonia, 15 were diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019. There were ground-glass opacities on chest computed tomography in 34 patients, and 8 of these patients were confirmed to have novel coronavirus pneumonia. In total, 30 patients showed no absorption on computed tomography re-examination, of which 10 (10/30) were diagnosed with novel coronavirus pneumonia. Additionally, 20 patients had non-absorption of lesions when ground-glass opacities on initial and follow-up computed tomography were combined, and 13 of these patients were confirmed to have novel coronavirus pneumonia. For ground-glass opacities on computed tomography combined with non-absorption of lesions on computed tomography re-examination, the sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of the novel coronavirus were 86.7% and 90.1%, respectively.

Among suspected patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia, combining ground-glass opacities on computed tomography with a computed tomography re-examination might improve the accuracy of diagnosis.