%0 Journal Article %T Evaluation of Ultra-Low-Dose Chest Computed Tomography Images in Detecting Lung Lesions Related to COVID-19: A Prospective Study %J Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences %I Shiraz University of Medical Sciences %Z 0253-0716 %A Zarei, Fariba %A Jalli, Reza %A Chatterjee, Sabyasachi %A Ravanfar Haghighi, Rezvan %A Iranpour, Pooya %A Vardhan Chatterjee, Vani %A Emadi, Sedigheh %D 2022 %\ 07/01/2022 %V 47 %N 4 %P 338-349 %! Evaluation of Ultra-Low-Dose Chest Computed Tomography Images in Detecting Lung Lesions Related to COVID-19: A Prospective Study %K COVID-19 %K Radiation protection %K Computed Tomography %R 10.30476/ijms.2021.90665.2165 %X Background: The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of ultra-low-dose (ULD) chest computed tomography (CT) in comparison with the routine dose (RD) CT images in detecting lung lesions related to COVID-19.Methods: A prospective study was conducted during April-September 2020 at Shahid Faghihi Hospital affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. In total, 273 volunteers with suspected COVID-19 participated in the study and successively underwent RD-CT and ULD-CT chest scans. Two expert radiologists qualitatively evaluated the images. Dose assessment was performed by determining volume CT dose index, dose length product, and size-specific dose estimate. Data analysis was performed using a ranking test and kappa coefficient (κ). P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Lung lesions could be detected with both RD-CT and ULD-CT images in patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 (κ=1.0, P=0.016). The estimated effective dose for the RD-CT protocol was 22-fold higher than in the ULD-CT protocol. In the case of the ULD-CT protocol, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and positive predictive value for the detection of consolidation were 60%, 83%, 80%, and 20%, respectively. Comparably, in the case of RD-CT, these percentages for the detection of ground-glass opacity (GGO) were 62%, 66%, 66%, and 18%, respectively. Assuming the result of real-time polymerase chain reaction as true-positive, analysis of the receiver-operating characteristic curve for GGO detected using the ULD-CT protocol showed a maximum area under the curve of 0.78. Conclusion: ULD-CT, with 94% dose reduction, can be an alternative to RD-CT to detect lung lesions for COVID-19 diagnosis and follow-up.  %U https://ijms.sums.ac.ir/article_48291_3ea841d24be48728f71b080fe286a379.pdf