Study of Chest CT Features of COVID-19

Objective:To investigate the imaging features of novel coronavirus pneumonia(COVID-19) on chest CT. Methods:26 patients with COVID-19(14 males and 12 females) were finally diagnosed, the chest high-resolution CT was performed, and the clinical data and HRCT manifestations were retrospectively analyzed, focusing on observing the morphology and distribution of the lesions, as well as the signs of pulmonary vascular thickening, air bronchogram, interlobular septal thickening in the lesions. Results:Abnormal findings were seen in all of the 26 patients with COVID-19, among them, 18 cases had bilateral involvement and 8 had unilateral involvement in the lungs; single pulmonary lobe was involved in 6 cases, 2 lobes to 4 lobes involved in 10 cases,and 5 lobes involved in 10 cases; the lesions located in the peripheral area of the lungs in 20 cases, in the subpleural area of the lungs in 17 cases; the main HRCT manifestations were pure ground glass opacity(pGGO) in 19 cases, mixed ground glass opacity(mGGO) in 11 cases, consolidative lesions with ground glass opacity(GGO) surrounding in 4 cases, and 1 case of high-resolution CT showed a single tiny ground-glass opacity lesion(3 mm in diameter size); there were 17 cases of pulmonary vascular thickening(65.4%), 15 cases of air bronchogram(57.7%), 16 cases of interlobular septal thickening(61.5%), 8 cases of paving stones(30.8%) in the lesion areas. Unilateral small amount of pleural effusion in 3 cases and mediastinal lymph nodes enlargement in 1 case were seen also. Conclusion:Chest HRCT findings of COVID-19 have certain characteristics, multiple ground glass opacities in peripheral pulmonary areas accompanied by local pulmonary vascular thickening, air bronchogram, and interlobular septal thickening suggested clinical diagnosis.