Chest Computed Tomography and Clinical Follow-Up of Discharged Patients with COVID-19 in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang, China

Rationale: Many clinical studies have focused on the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of inpatients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, there are few reports about the clinical follow-up of discharged patients. Objectives: To describe the follow-up of patients with COVID-19 in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang, China. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 4-week follow-ups in patients with COVID-19, including computed tomographic (CT) chest scanning, blood testing, and oropharyngeal-swab testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ribonucleic acid. The chest CT scans and blood tests were performed on the last day before discharge and 2 weeks and 4 weeks after discharge. The oropharyngeal-swab tests were performed at both 1 week and 2 weeks after discharge. Fifty-one patients with common COVID-19 were enrolled in the study. All the CT and clinical data were collected between January 23 and March 28, 2020. Results: Compared with the abnormalities found on the the last CT scans before discharge, the abnormalities in the lungs at the first and second follow-ups after discharge had been gradually absorbed. The cases with focal ground-glass opacity were reduced from 17.7% to 9.8% of cases. The cases with multiple ground-glass opacities decreased from 80.4% to 23.5%. The cases with consolidation were reduced from 49.0% to 2.0%. The cases with interlobular septal thickening were reduced from 80.4% to 35.3%. The cases with subpleural lines were reduced from 29.4% to 7.8%. The cases with irregular lines were reduced from 41.2% to 15.7%. The lung lesions of 25.5% patients were shown to be fully absorbed on the first CT scans after discharge, and the rate of lung recovery increased to 64.7% after the second follow-up. Nucleic-acid test results became recurrently positive in 17.6% of discharged patients, of whom only 33.3% complained of clinical symptoms. There were no differences in the characteristics of the last CT scans before discharge between the patients with recurrently positive test results and the patients with negative test results. The lung damage was fully absorbed in 55.6% of discharged patients with recurrence of positive test results for SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid. Conclusions: The lung damage due to COVID-19 could be reversible for patients with common COVID-19. A few cases showed recurring positive results of nucleic-acid tests after discharge.