EVALUATION OF COVID-19 PNEUMONIA BY CONVENTIONAL RADIOGRAPHYAT AGMC & GBP HOSPITAL

Background: After its origin in Wuhan, China, coronavirus related respiratory illness spread across the globe, being declared as a pandemic by WHO on March 13,2020. Because it is acquired via respiratory droplets, community spread is responsible for the recent global crisis. Coronavirus related respiratory illness usually manifests clinically as pneumonia with predominant imaging findings of an atypical or organizing pneumonia. Chest radiographs are usually of limited value in the diagnosis of early stage specially in mild disease course however , the CT findings may be present early even before the onset of the symptoms. Chest radiographs is very helpful in the intermediate to advanced stages of COVID-19 with features of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) as well as the follow-up. Objective:ToevaluatetheCOVID-19pneumoniabyChestX-ray findings. ToassesstheseverityofCOVID-19pneumoniausingchest x-rayscoringsystem. Materials and method: An observational longituidinal study was carried over 8 weeks at an Radiodiagnosis department of a tertiary care Hospital in North- Eastern India. Around 60 cases of COVID-19 RT-PCR positive patients evaluated by chest x-ray and different radiographic features were studied. The data were analyzed accordingly by descriptive statistics for the result. Result: The study population was predominantly male (69%), with mean age of 49.5± 9.5 years. Among RTPCR positive patients 71.43% had abnormal baseline chest X-rays among abnormal CXRs 57.5% shows groundglass opacity, 30% shows consolidation and 7.5% shows pleural effusion. Conclusion:Radiographic findings are very good predictor for assessing the course of COVID-19 diseases and it could be used as long –term consequences monitoring and assessing the severity scoring.