Comparison of the RSNA chest CT classification system and CO-RADS system in reporting COVID-19 pneumonia in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new infection with three pandemic waves up till now. CT plays an important role in diagnosis with multiple reporting systems that can be used during CT analysis. We aimed to compare reporting using the recommendations of the radiological society of North America (RSNA) versus the coronavirus disease reporting and data system (CO-RADS) and to assess the performance of CT if used in asymptomatic patients as a screening. Two hundred and fifty-one patients who underwent chest CT scanning either due to clinical suspicion or as screening before hospital admission were included in this retrospective observational cross-sectional study. This was followed by RT-PCR for confirmation. Three radiologists with different years of experience interpreted the CT findings using the RSNA recommendations and the CO-RADS reporting. The data were collected and compared. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference noted in the diagnostic accuracy obtained while using the RSNA recommendations and the CO-RADS reporting system. Also, a good inter-rater agreement was noticed while using the two reporting systems. The CT showed a highly significant value while used in the assessment of symptomatic patients in controversy to the screening of asymptomatic patients. CONCLUSION: Both reporting systems show similar diagnostic accuracy with a good almost similar inter-rater agreement. Both can be used while interpreting the CT images of cases with suspected COVID-19 infection. CT can be used effectively in the detection of COVID-19 infection between symptomatic patients while it is of a lower value in the screening of asymptomatic patients.