Pulmonary Sequelae of COVID-19 in Patients With Lung Damage Over 75% (CT-4)

Introduction: A number of studies uses severity of lung damage as a predictor of lung changes in the long-term period.

Objective: To evaluate computed tomography (CT) findings in the long-term period after extremely severe lung damage (CT-4) caused by COVID-19 during different pandemic waves and compare those with clinical data.

Materials and methods: The study included 51 patients (51.0% of them were women; age, 57 ± 12 years [95% CI, 53-60]) that were treated for COVID-19 with lung damage (CT-4) in O.M. Filatov City Clinical Hospital No. 15 (Moscow, Russian Federation) 

and gave their consent for examination after discharge. The patients underwent chest CT and dyspnea assessment (Medical Research Council [MRC] dyspnea scale) in the long-term period and were grouped based on the pandemic wave and dyspnea grade. Twelve patients from the first pandemic wave were examined 12.5 months after discharge; 13 patients from the second pandemic wave were examined in 6.5 months, and 26 patients from the third pandemic wave were examined in 8 months. The group with MRC dyspnea grade 0 included 19 patients, whereas 32 patients comprised the group with MRC dyspnea grades 1 and 2.

Results: CT revealed changes in 50 (98.0%) of the examined patients, with fibrotic-like changes (88.2%), areas of consolidation (47.1%), and ground-glass opacity (13.7%) being the most common findings. All 3 patterns were equally common, regardless of the pandemic wave. No dyspnea higher than MRC grade 2 was observed. Fibrotic-like changes were found in 100.0% of the patients with MRC dyspnea grades 1 and 2, whereas they were detected only in 68.4% of the patients with MRC dyspnea grade 0, P = .002. The multivariate analysis showed that fibrotic-like changes were the only factor associated with dyspnea higher than grade 0.

Conclusions: After extremely severe lung damage (CT-4) CT changes were present in almost all the patients. The study results highlight clinical significance of these changes and demonstrate the rehabilitation potential of this group.

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