Abstract

Objective: We aimed to study the diagnostic values of Covid-19’s CT images, evaluate the differences between CT images of Covid-19 patients from China and Democratic Republic of Congo. We would also want to identify the relation between the diagnostic performance of Chest CT-Scan Images and initial RT-PCR.

Methods: A retrospective research method design was used to assess Chest CT-Scan images of adult patients suffered from Covid-19 pandemic in China and DRC. Our research sample was selected by using random sampling technique. The data Analysis of CT images taken as confirmed cases of covid-19 patients was facilitated by three radiologists. The analysis was been realized with the manner of percentage, tables and using the Micro-Soft Word. The statistical analysis was analyzed using an IBM SPSS Statistics, version 25 for Windows and the P value which was considered as statistically significant was P < 0.05.

Results: The result found 50 patients from China and 35 patients from DRC. Fever (76%), cough with 68%, shortness of breath (66%), and sore throat (58%) were most common onset symptoms of the patients from China while in DRC, fever appeared as the first symptom with 80% followed by sore throat (74.28%), Cough (68.57%), and shortness of breath (68.57%). Ground-glass opacities (62%) and consolidations (24%) were common chest CT lesions where multilobar lesions (70%), bilateral (68%), unilateral (32%), peripheral (44%), and posterior (48%) were seen in China. In other hand, Ground-glass opacities (35.42%) and mixed cases(37.14%) were common lesions seen in DRC where we found multilobar lesions (80%), bilateral lesions (68.57%), unilateral lesions (31.42%), peripheral lesions (40%) and posterior lesions (48.57%).

Conclusions: CT scan images found in two areas were analyzed and it was concluded that there was a lot of similarities in both areas even if some different features were identified. The commonest findings in Covid-19’s patients of two areas were ground glass opacities, multilobal lesions, bilateral, peripheral and posterior lesions.

Keywords: Computed Tomography; Covid-19; RT-PCR; Ground-Glass Opacities (GGOs)

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