Distinguishing COVID-19 from influenza pneumonia in the early stage through CT imaging and clinical features

Zhiqi Yang; Daiying Lin; Xiaofeng Chen; Jinming Qiu; Shengkai Li; Ruibin Huang; Hongfu Sun; Yuting Liao; Jianning Xiao; Yanyan Tang; Guorui Liu; Renhua Wu; Xiangguang Chen; Zhuozhi Dai

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04. 17.20061242 doi: medRxiv preprint extraction of CT qualitative and quantitative imaging features, two senior radiologists (Z.Y. and X.C., more than 15 years of experience) reached a consensus and were blinded to the clinical and laboratory findings. Lesion in the outer third of the lung was defined as peripheral and lesion in the inner two thirds of the lung was defined as central. The classification of the lesion size is based on a previous study (14) . The progression of lesion within each lung lobe was evaluated by scoring each lobe from 0 to 4 (15), corresponding to normal, 1% ~25% infection, 26%~ 50% infection, 51%~ 75% infection and more than 75% infection, respectively. The scores were combined for all 5 lobes to provide a total score ranging from 0 to 20. Figure 2 was one example of the evaluation of chest CT images.