Study: Chest X-ray With COVID-19 Is More Often "clear"

Study: chest x-ray with COVID-19 is more often "clear"

Scientists analyzed images taken on an outpatient basis for patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. Almost 60% of them looked normal.

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Chest x-rays are often not helpful in diagnosing COVID-19 in the outpatient clinic. A study that analyzes the value of this diagnostic method for new coronavirus infection is published in the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine. It is the largest conventional X-ray study for COVID-19 to date.

Patients with a mild course of coronavirus infection in outpatient clinics (clinics, family medicine practices) often undergo chest x-rays. This method is cheaper than the recommended computed tomography.

Michael Weinstock, a physician at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University, in a comment to MedPage Today recalled that most patients with a new coronavirus infection carry the disease in a new form. He said:

“We were surprised when we started looking, because there was practically no data from dispensaries before. But most of the examined patients should be among this population."

Scientists analyzed 636 chest radiographs of COVID-positive patients in New York City. Eleven radiographers reviewed these images and qualified what they saw as "normal" or "mild", "certain" or "severe" disease.

58.3% of the chest organs of patients with COVID-19 looked normal. In medical practice, doctors called 74% of the same radiographs normal. In total, 89% of the images looked normal or mildly abnormal.

Most often, “pathological” images showed interstitial changes (23.7%) and frosted glass darkening (19%). The lower lobe of the lungs was more often affected, the changes were usually on both sides.

The study authors point out that in an outpatient setting, medical imaging may not be sufficient to establish a diagnosis of COVID-19.