Comparison of semiquantitative chest CT scoring systems to estimate severity in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia

ConclusionsAll semiquantitative scoring systems demonstrated substantial diagnostic performance for clinical severity at admission with excellent interobserver agreement. Interpretation time was significantly shorter in TSS and CCTS than in CTSS. The correlation between the scoring system and QDAR was highest in CCTS, followed by TSS and CTSS. CCTS appeared to be the most appropriate CT scoring system for clinical practice.Key Points• Three semiquantitative scoring systems demonstrate substantial accuracy (area under the curve: 0.836–0.855) for diagnosing clinical severity at admission and (area under the curve: 0.786–0.802) for risk of developing critical illness.• Total CT score (TSS) and chest CT score (CCTS) were considered to be more appropriate in terms of clinical usefulness as compared with CT severity score (CTSS), given the shorter interpretation time in TSS and CCTS, and the lowest correlation with quantitative dense area ratio in CTSS.• CCTS is assumed to distinguish subtle from mild lung involvement better than TSS by adopting a 5% threshold in scoring the degree of severity.
Source: European Radiology - Category: Radiology Source Type: research