Imaging study reveals 'significant deformities' in lungs of some COVID patients
Although the immediate threat of COVID-19 is now in the rearview mirror of the medical field, its lingering effects are not yet fully understood. New research details just how serious the long-term effects of the virus can be for some.
Published in the Journal of Computers in Medicine and Biology, the paper reveals that many patients with severe COVID were left with serious deformities on the surface of their lungs.
“The persistence and impact of long COVID remains a concern. Our AI analysis identified specific areas of lung damage that could have enduring consequences,” principal investigator Anant Madabhushi, PhD, executive director of Emory AI Health, and colleagues note. “While we have not yet examined long COVID patients explicitly, it’s crucial to investigate whether these individuals exhibit residual lung deformation, which could provide valuable insights into the long-term effects of this disease.”
For the study, experts included more than 3,400 patients with available baseline chest CT scans. The patients were divided into three groups—one that weathered mild COVID cases, one that endured severe COVID that required ventilation and one group of healthy controls. Experts deployed an AI model to further characterize shape differences and the presence of lung infiltrates on imaging.
Compared to healthy controls, both groups with COVID displayed significant differences along the mediastinal and basal surfaces of their lungs, though they were more pronounced in the severe COVID group. That group also had more infiltrates and significantly more variations in volume, which decreased substantially as virus severity increased.
These changes could have long-lasting implications for lung function, the authors suggest.
“These damages caused to the lung may even lead to permanent loss of lung function,” the group writes. “However, as previously mentioned, a quantitative assessment of the nature, extent and precise location of the COVID-19 induced lung deformation and associated damage has not been previously attempted.”
The authors add that the finding of worsening COVID being associated with more substantial changes presents an opportunity to prevent further, more significant damage.
“We showed that AI based quantification of these lung shape differences can help in COVID-19 prognosis,” the group suggests. “Integrating these biomarkers with lung infiltrate-based biomarkers through a novel AI framework, we illustrated that COVID-19 prognosis can further be improved.”
The study abstract is available here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.