Changes of quantitative CT-based airway wall dimensions in patients with COVID-19 during early recovery

Jiaxuan Xu; Zhenyu Liang; Wenhua Jian; Jianyu Li; Guoyan Tang; Xiaoneng Mo; Dongying Zhang; Jinping Zheng; Yuanxin Qian; Jinxin Liu; Shiyue Li

doi:10.21037/jtd-20-2790

Changes of quantitative CT-based airway wall dimensions in patients with COVID-19 during early recovery

J Thorac Dis. 2021 Mar;13(3):1517-1530. doi: 10.21037/jtd-20-2790.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ China State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
² Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
³ Department of Respiratory Medicine, Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ Department of Radiology, Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Background: As the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic evolves, the need for recognizing the structural pulmonary changes of the disease during early convalescence has emerged. Most studies focus on parenchymal destruction of the disease; but little is known about whether the disease affects the airway. This study was conducted to investigate the changes in airway dimensions and explore the associated factors during early convalescence in patients with COVID-19.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed quantitative computed tomography (CT)-based airway measures of 69 patients with COVID-19 from 5 February to 17 March 2020, and 32 non-COVID-19 participants from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019 from Guangzhou, China. The well-established measures of wall area fraction and the square root of the wall area of a hypothetical bronchus with an inner perimeter of 10 mm, were used to describe airway wall dimensions. We described the characteristics of the dimensions and inner area of airways in 66 patients with COVID-19 at the initial and convalescent stages of the disease, and compared them with the non-COVID-19 group. Linear regression models were constructed to investigate the association of airway dimensions with duration of hospitalization or disease severity after recovery. Partial correlation coefficients were calculated to investigate whether inflammatory markers were related to airway dimensions.

Results: Among 66 patients with COVID-19, airway dimensions were greater during disease initiation than early convalescence, which was significantly greater than in non-COVID-19 participants. No significant difference was found between the patients with COVID-19 at the initial stage and the non-COVID-19 controls regarding the first to eighth generations of the inner area. In adjusted regression models, duration of hospitalization was negatively associated with wall area fraction of the first to the sixth generation of airways. No significant associations exist between airway dimensions and disease severity, or airway dimensions with inflammatory markers.

Conclusions: Airway dimensions in patients with COVID-19 during disease initiation are greater than those in non-COVID-19 participants. Such structural airway changes continue to remain significantly greater during early convalescence. No evidence shows that disease severity or inflammatory markers are associated with airway dimensions, implying that the primary lesion attacked by COVID-19 might not be the airways.

Keywords: Airway wall thickness; coronavirus; coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19); early convalescence; quantitative computed tomography (quantitative CT).