Diagnostic value of ground-glass opacities on computed tomography combined with computed tomography re-examination in patients with suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia

Background: this study aimed to determine the diagnostic value of ground-glass opacities on computed tomography combined with computed tomography re-examination in patients with suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia. materials and methods: suspected cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia were identified retrospectively between january 23 and february 18, 2020. computed tomography examination was conducted for all patients. for all suspected cases, real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction detection of novel coronavirus nucleic acid was conducted. computed tomography re-examination in the short term was also performed. results: among 92 patients suspected with novel coronavirus pneumonia, 15 were diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019. there were ground-glass opacities on chest computed tomography in 34 patients, and 8 of these patients were confirmed to have novel coronavirus pneumonia. in total, 30 patients showed no absorption on computed tomography re-examination, of which 10 (10/30) were diagnosed with novel coronavirus pneumonia. additionally, 20 patients had nonabsorption of lesions when ground-glass opacities on initial and follow-up computed tomography were combined, and 13 of these patients were confirmed to have novel coronavirus pneumonia. for ground-glass opacities on computed tomography combined with non-absorption of lesions on computed tomography re-examination, the sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of the novel coronavirus were 86.7% and 90.1%, respectively. conclusion: among suspected patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia, combining ground-glass opacities on computed tomography with a computed tomography re-examination might improve the accuracy of diagnosis.