Analysis of Radiological features and inflammatory markers in Covid-19 Cases in Tertiary care centre.

Introduction: Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread rapidly across the world with very high human to human transmission rate. It spread all over the world with approximately 66.4 crore cases, 64.40 crore recoveries and 67.1 lakh deaths till now. In India there were 4.46 crore cases of which 4.41 crore recovered and there were 5.30 lakh deaths till now (CSSE COVID-19 Data)1. Aims and objective: To study the Clinical, Radiological profile and inflammatory markers in Covid-19 patients Materials and method: The study was carried out in the Department of Respiratory Medicine of R.D. Gardi Medical College, Ujjain (MP). Result: A total of 107 patients with COVID-19 disease were evaluated, the patients had a median age of 52 years and a mean age of 50.79±16.81 years. The most common clinical presentation were the fever which was seen in 80(74.8%) cases, breathlessness in 84(78.5%), cough in 71(66.4%), weakness in 27.1%, loss of smell in 31.8% and loss of taste in 29.9%. The most common co-morbidity present in the study group was diabetes mellitus, which was present in 51(47.7%) cases. The chest radiograph of the patients revealed consolidation in 51(47.7%), GGOs in 29(27.1%), GGO with consolidation in 3(2.8%) and 23(21.5%) cases had normal pattern. Severity of disease was significantly associated with age of the patient. The typical findings of chest CT in the case of COVID-19 pneumonia include "bilateral, peripheral, and basal predominant ground-glass opacities with or without consolidation and broncho-vascular thickening, In addition, atypical findings are "cavitations, central upper lobe predominance, nodules, masses, tree-in bud sign and lymphadenopathy. A significant statistical correlation was found between CT severity score. In our study, out of 107 cases, 80.4% had raised CRP level, 69.2% had raised D-dimer level, 67.3% cases had raised LDH level and 55.1% had raised S.Ferritin level. Conclusions: Chest imaging played a very important part in the diagnosis and management of covid 19 patients during the pandemic. The typical presentation of chest radiographs and HRCT thorax helped in diagnosing cases even when the RTPCR, Rapid antigen tests were negative or not available along with clinical features and inflammatory markers especially the CRP, LDH, D-dimer and S.Ferritin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]