Open AccessDiagnostic accuracy of chest computed tomography in improving the false negative rate as compared to reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction in coronavirus disease 2019 pneumonia: A cross sectional analysis of 348 cases from India
Author(s) -
Reddy Ravikanth
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
lung india
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.457
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 0974-598X
pISSN - 0970-2113
DOI - 10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_410_20
Subject(s) - medicine , covid-19 , pneumonia , radiology , population , emergency department , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , environmental health , psychiatry
Early differentiation between emergency department (ED) patients with and without coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is very important. The diagnosis of COVID-19 depends on real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). On imaging, computed tomography (CT) manifestations resemble those seen in viral pneumonias, with multifocal ground-glass opacities and consolidation in a peripheral distribution being the most common findings. Although these findings lack specificity for COVID-19 diagnosis on imaging grounds, CT could be used to provide objective assessment about the extension of the lung opacities, which could be used as an imaging surrogate for disease burden. We set out to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of chest CT scanning in detecting COVID-19 in a population with suspected COVID-19 patients.