Pancreatic Steatosis Evaluated by Automated Volumetric CT Fat Fraction of the Pancreas: Association with Severity in COVID-19 Pneumonia

• Published in: Tomography (Ann Arbor) Vol. 8; no. 6; pp. 2806 - 2814
• Main Authors: Tanabe, Masahiro, Kunihiro, Yoshie, Higashi, Mayumi, Ihara, Kenichiro, Tanabe, Masaya, Yagi, Takeshi, Kobayashi, Taiga, Ueda, Takaaki, Ito, Katsuyoshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 24-11-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Bacterial pneumonia; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography; coronavirus disease 2019; COVID-19 - diagnostic imaging; CT fat volume fraction; Health aspects; Humans; Lung - diagnostic imaging; lung severity score; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Pancreas - diagnostic imaging; pancreatic steatosis; Pneumonia; Technology application; Japan; CT fat volume fraction; lung severity score; pancreatic steatosis; coronavirus disease 2019
• ISSN: 2379-139X; 2379-1381; 2379-139X
• DOI: 10.3390/tomography8060234

This study investigated the relationship between the severity of pneumonia based on chest CT findings and that of pancreatic steatosis assessed using an automated volumetric measurement of the CT fat volume fraction (CT-FVF) of the pancreas, using unenhanced three-dimensional CT in polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 patients. The study population consisted of 128 patients with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 infection who underwent CT examinations. The CT-FVF of the pancreas was calculated using a histogram analysis for the isolation of fat-containing voxels in the pancreas. The CT-FVF (%) of the pancreas had a significantly positive correlation with the lung severity score on CT (
= 0.549,
< 0.01). CT-FVF (%) of the pancreas in the severe pneumonia group was significantly higher than that of the non-severe pneumonia group (21.7% vs. 7.8%,
< 0.01). The area under the curve of CT-FVF (%) of the pancreas in predicting the severity of pneumonia on CT was calculated to be 0.82, with a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 68% at a threshold for the severity score of 12.3. The automated volumetric measurement of the CT-FVF of the pancreas using unenhanced CT can help estimate disease severity in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia based on chest CT findings.