A SINGLE-CENTRE RETROSPECTIVE AND OBSERVATIONAL INVESTIGATION ON THE MANIFESTATIONS OF COVID-19 ON CHEST HRCT IN THEPOPULATION OF ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

Abstract

Background: The clinical symptoms of COVID-19 in conjunction with chest high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) can give quick screening and determine the disease's severity. HRCT plays an important role in the evaluation and clinical management of COVID-19, which would benet from a more comprehensive overview of its clinical diagnosis and therapy. To dene the spectrum of HRCT results in Objective: COVID 19 individuals with symptoms and to connect HRCT ndings with clinical symptoms of the disease. A retrospective r Methods: esearch of 1513 COVID patients recently diagnosed with COVID-19 and positive RT-PCR test ndings; both sexes were included from the middle of March to the end of May 2021. The patients were separated into three age groups and their HRCT CT severity scores (CTSS) were evaluated. Different age groups' clinical symptoms were connected with the derived CTSS. Results: The average age of the patients was 50.14 percent, with 34% falling between the ages of 35 and 54. The majority of them had fever, cough, dyspnea, myalgia, and headache, but other symptoms like sore throat, diarrhoea, nausea, anosmia, and chest discomfort were less common. In the current study, clinical characteristics had the strongest relationship with moderate CTSS. HRCT ndings include ground-glass opacity (GGO), consolidation, bronchovascular thickening, crazy paving look, subpleural bands/brosis, and bronchiectasis. In moderate and severe patient groups, the CTSS link with lung lobe distribution and gender was highly signicant. Bilateral lung distribution changes (83.6%) were more common in group 2 than central and peripheral distribution changes (70.5%), with lower lobe involvement in both genders. Conclusion: HRCT helps identify COVID-19's pulmonary symptoms in diagnosis and treatment. Imaging patterns depending on infection duration help understand pathophysiology and predict illness development and effects. This study may link clinical symptoms to CTSS and COVID-19 pulmonary changes. It could mean understanding the following wave's features and management. HRCT chest detects early parenchymal abnormalities, measures disease severity in all symptomatic patients, and diagnoses COVID infection regardless of RT-PCR status.