RESEARCH ARTICLE


Diagnostic Value of Chest CT scan for COVID-19 Suspected Cases and Its Compatibility with RT-PCR Method: A Survey from Jiroft, Iran



Alireza Razzaghi1, Ehsan Goroei Sardu2, Shiva Kargar3, Eshagh Barfar4, Ali Reza Yusefi5, Armin Hoveidaei6, Cain C. T. Clark7, Salman Daneshi8, *
1 Road Traffic Injury Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
2 Clinical Research Development Unit of Imam Khomeini Hospital, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences, Jiroft, Iran
3 MSc Student of Epidemiology, School of Health, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran
4 Health Promotion Research Center, Zahedan University of Medical Science, Zahedan, Iran
5 Assistant Professor of Health Services Management, Department of Public Health, School of Health, Jiroft University of Medical Science, Jiroft, Iran
6 Student Research Committee, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
7 Centre for Intelligent Healthcare, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, U.K.
8 Department of Public Health, School of Health, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences, Jiroft, Iran


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Creative Commons License
© 2022 Razzaghi et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Public Health, School of Health, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences, Jiroft, Iran; Tel: 03443310916; E-mail: salmandaneshi008@gmail.com


Abstract

Introduction:

Accurate diagnosis of the COVID-19 disease is important. Currently, chest computed tomography (CT) and reverse polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) are being used for the diagnosis of the COVID-19 disease. This study was performed to evaluate the Chest computed tomography (CT) diagnostic value in comparison with the RT - PCR method among COVID-19 patients.

Methods:

This cross-sectional study was performed on suspected cases of COVID-19 in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Jiroft, Iran. Studied patients were evaluated via both a chest CT scan and nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2 detection. Data was collected using a self-administered checklist, including demographic information, medical history, and symptoms of COVID-19, chest CT scan, and RT-PCR findings. Data were analyzed using SPSS-V21.

Results:

One thousand and ninety (1090) cases participated in the study; the mean age of the cases of COVID-19 was 48.20± 7.31 years old. The results of the RT-PCR test were 410 (37.6%) positive and 680 (62.4%) negative cases. According to the results of RT-PCR, which is the gold standard method, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive values of chest CT were 98.5%. (99.4-96.8 CI: 95%), 55.7% (59.5 – 51.9 CI: 95%), 71.5% (74.4 -69.0 CI: 95%), 57.3% (60.9 – 53.5 CI: 95%), and 98.4% (99.4% - 99.6 CI: 95%), respectively.

Discussion:

The results of the present study showed that a chest CT scan is highly sensitive for the diagnosis of the COVID-19 disease. Therefore, it can be used as a suitable method for screening and early detection, which requires knowledge of its common radiologic patterns. However, the results showed that the use of this method has low specificity, so it cannot be used for definitive diagnosis and should be used as a complementary method concomitant to the RT - PCR test.

Keywords: Chest CT scan, COVID-19, RT-PCR, Patients, SARS-CoV-2, MERS.