Background

Patients with severe COVID-19 have been reported to have pulmonary and radiological impairment at follow up which may result in long-term pulmonary and systemic sequelae.

Methods

We aimed to determine the radiological changes on computed tomography scans of the chest and pulmonary functional abnormalities at 1 year in ICU survivors with severe COVID-19 within the 2-year prospective OUTSTRIP COVID-19 study.

Results

The mean age of our cohort was 48.77± 8.668 years.  CT chest was performed in a total of 135 patients at 1-year follow-up, abnormal CT chest findings were seen in 118(87.4%) patients with a mean CTSS of 8.08 ± 6.8. The predominant abnormality was reticular changes in 90(66.7%) with other findings detailed in Table 1. Those with an abnormal CT chest had a significantly lower but normal forced vital capacity (91.9% ± 15.4 vs 81.1% ± 13.7 predicted, p = 0.014), total lung capacity (94.3% ± 12.7 vs 82.5 % ± 13.9 predicted, p = 0.017) and oxygen saturation after six-minute walk test (98.3 ± .651 vs 97.5 ± 1.2, p = 0.033). Six-minute walk distance (6MWD) was significantly less than the predicted distance in those with an abnormal CT 63(62.4%) vs 7(77.8), p = 0.020).

Conclusion:

Patients recovering from severe COVID-19 not only have persistent radiological changes at 1 year but also correlate to several physiological parameters including FVC, TLC, 6MWD, and oxygen saturation after a six-minute walk test.