Value of chest CT screening in the early COVID-19 outbreak

Objective: In view of the shortage of new corona virus nuclear acid test in the early Caved-19 outbreak, the application value of chest CT in screening COVID-19 patients was explored. Methods: Retrospective analysis was performed on the data of patients with fever who received chest CT and new coronavirus nucleic acid test during January 25, 2020 to February 2, 2020 in Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University. A total of 587 patients were enrolled, including 290 males and 297 females, aged from 11.0 to 96.0 (51.3 ± 17.1) years old. Taking the nucleic acid test results as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity and rate of misdiagnosis of CT screening were calculated. Results: Among the 587 patients, there were 433 positive cases (73.8%, 433/587) and 154 negative cases (26.2%, 154/587) of novel coronavirus nucleic acid test. Using CT screening, 494 cases (84.2%, 494/587) were positive and 93 cases (15.8%, 93/587) were negative. The sensitivity of CT screening was 97.7% (423/433), specificity was 53.9% (83/154) and rate of misdiagnosis was 2.3% (10/433). Conclusions: In the early COVID-19 outbreak, CT screening has the advantages of high sensitivity and low rate of misdiagnosis, which can compensate for the shortage of new coronavirus nuclei acid test and can be used as a rapid screening for early prevention and control. (authors)