How to differentiate COVID-19 pneumonia from heart failure with computed tomography at initial medical contact during epidemic period

Zhaowei Zhu; Jianjun Tang; Xiangping Chai; Zhenfei Fang; Qiming Liu; Xinqun Hu; Danyan Xu; Jia He; Liang Tang; Shi Tai; Yuzhi Wu; Shenghua Zhou

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.04.20031047 doi: medRxiv preprint and CK-MB level, cardiac troponin T (cTnT) level in heart failure group was significantly higher than that in COVID-19 group [1793 (979,5852) vs. 0.06 (0.01, 0.13), p<0.001]. All the patients with heart failure were treated with anti-heart failure medicine in hospital. White blood cell and neutrophil count was higher in heart failure group compared with that in COVID-19 group [7.32 (100) <0.001 Values are median (interquartile range), n (%), or mean ± SD. SPO2= oxygen saturation, CRP= C-reactive protein, ESR= erythrocyte sedimentation rate, PCT= procalcitonin, CK= creatine kinase, CK-MB= creatine kinase-MB, cTnT= cardiac troponin T. Figure 1 showed the typical imaging for heart failure (figure 1A, 1B) and COVID-19 pneumonia ( figure 1C, 1D) . However, there were some similarities and differences between these 2 groups. The comparison of imaging features was concluded in Table 2 . Compared with patients with COVID-19, 11 patients in 12 had GGO in heart failure group, and there was no statistical difference between two groups (92% vs. 83%, p=0.537). There were also no differences between groups for consolidation, crazy paving pattern, and septal thickening. Hoverer, less patients had And there were more patients with subpleural effusion and cardiac enlargement in heart failure group than that in COVID-19 group (50% vs. 0%, P=0.005, separately). Besides, more fibrous lesions were found in COVID-19 group although there was no statistical difference (25% vs. 0%, . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.