Preoperative inference of chest radiography assessment in COVID-19

Abstract

Preoperative patient management is difficult in a pandemic. It is important to diagnose COVID-19 in the preoperative period as it will affect contamination and mortality during hospitalization and operation. We aimed to show how the place of chest X-ray in the diagnosis of COVID may vary according to the branch of the evaluating physician and, accordingly, what inferences can be made about the patients in the preoperative period. 250 patients who underwent Chest X-Ray during COVID-19 pandemic were included. 100 Real-time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) positive COVID-19 cases were included to the patients category and 150 cases with RT-PCR negative and Thorax Computerized Tomography (CT) COVID-related negative were included to the control group. Chest X-Ray soft the both groups have been blindly evaluated by family physicians, internal medicine specialists and chest diseases specialists in a random order. Chest X-Ray comments of physicians were compared with the reference of CT results and also the diagnostic value of the Chest X-Ray was determined. In the evaluation of compliance of the chest X-Ray with PCR the results were; the negative predictive value (78%), sensitivity (74.5%) and specificity (60.8%). The results of the compliance of the Chest X-Ray and Thorax CT were; the negative predictive value (71%), sensitivity (73%) and specificity (66.5%). We concluded that the chest X-Ray is not sufficient to be used alone not only at the stage of diagnosis but also in the pre-evaluation process in order to evaluate the COVID risk with regard to the patients with the planned surgical operations.