Chest radiography patterns of COVID-19 pneumonia in Kumasi, Ghana

OBJECTIVES: To document the pattern of chest radiographic findings in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with moderate to severe disease. DESIGN: Retrospective cross-sectional study. SETTING: The study site was Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) located at Bantama in Kumasi, the capital town of the Ashanti Region. It is the second largest hospital in the country and the major referral site for Ashanti region and the northern part of the country. The hospital hosts a highly infectious isolation unit (HIIU) for COVID-19 patients with moderate to severe infections and receives referred cases from the region and within the hospital. PARTICIPANTS: The study involved 27 patients admitted to the HIIU at KATH with COVID-19 infection who underwent chest X-ray as part of their investigations. RESULTS: The study enrolled 12 males and 15 females. The common comorbidities were hypertension and diabetes. Chest x-ray findings in most of the patients (81.5%) revealed ground-glass opacities while a few of them (18.5%) had lung consolidations without ground-glass opacities. For those with ground-glass opacities, eight (29.6%) had superimposed consolidation. All the participants had positive chest x-ray findings. CONCLUSION: The chest x-ray findings in the 27 COVID-19 positive patients with moderate to severe disease on admission at the KATH HIIU enrolled in this study showed significant pulmonary abnormalities. The predominant pulmonary abnormalities were bilateral peripheral ground-glass opacities with the lower lung zones being mostly affected. FUNDING: Funding from the Radiology Directorate, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana