Abstract

Background and aims Non-contrast chest computed tomography (CT) scanning is one of the important tools for evaluating of lung lesions. The aim of this study was to use a deep learning approach for predicting the outcome of patients with COVID-19 into two groups of critical and non-critical according to their CT features. Methods This was carried out as a retrospective study from March to April 2020 in Baqiyatallah Hospital, Tehran, Iran. From total of 1078 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia who underwent chest CT, 169 were critical cases and 909 were non-critical. Deep learning neural networks were used to classify samples into critical or non-critical ones according to the chest CT results. Results The best accuracy of prediction was seen by the presence of diffuse opacities and lesion distribution (both=0.91, 95 CI: 0.83-0.99). The largest sensitivity was achieved using lesion distribution (0.74, 95 CI: 0.55-0.93), and the largest specificity was for presence of diffuse opacities (0.95, 95 CI: 0.9-1). The total model showed an accuracy of 0.89 (95 CI: 0.79-0.99), and the corresponding sensitivity and specificity were 0.71 (95 CI: 0.51-0.91) and 0.93 (95 CI: 0.87-0.96), respectively. Conclusions The results showed that CT scan can accurately classify and predict critical and non-critical COVID-19 cases.