Evaluation of spleen volume in thoracic computed tomography in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia

Abstract

Objectives: There is not enough data on the effect of COVID-19 on spleen volume in patients with COVID-19. Our aim was to compare the spleen volume of the COVID-19 patients with the control group. Material and Method: 214 Patients (121 men, 93 women) who have a diagnosis of COVID-19 who have thorax CT were included in the study. In the patient group, there was evidence of viral pneumonia on thoracic CT or PCR was positive, all of them were patients who received treatment for Covid. The control group consisted of 185 patients (106 men, 79 women). Interobserver agreement was calculated. Analysis of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to identify a spleen volume cutoff value at which the accuracy for COVID-19 diagnosis was maximised. Results: The mean spleen volume of the patient group was found to be 260 (range, 96.3-565, SD: 82.5) which was statistically significantly higher than the control group which was 220 (range, 125.9-331.9, SD: 34.5) (p<0.05). Excellent agreement was found between two blind observers and between intraobserver spleen volume measurements. In our study, the spleen volume for the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia was 208.4 (AUC 0.639; 95% CI 0.584-0.695), sensitivity and specificity were 69.6% and 66.7%, respectively. Conclusions: Quantitative evaluation of spleen volume can give an idea about the Covid diagnosis. Spleen volume is higher in Covid group than control group.