Digital tomosynthesis improves chest radiograph accuracy and reduces microbiological false negatives in COVID-19 diagnosis

Purpose Diagnosing pneumonia by radiograph is improvable. We aimed (a) to compare radiograph and digital thoracic tomosynthesis (DTT) performances and agreement for COVID-19 pneumonia diagnosis, and (b) to assess the DTT ability for COVID-19 diagnosis when polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and radiograph are negative. Methods Two emergency radiologists with 11 (ER1) and 14 experience-years (ER2) retrospectively evaluated radiograph and DTT images acquired simultaneously in consecutively clinically suspected COVID-19 pneumonia patients in March 2020–January 2021. Considering PCR and/or serology as reference standard, DTT and radiograph diagnostic performance and interobserver agreement, and DTT contributions in unequivocal, equivocal, and absent radiograph opacities were analysed by the area under the curve (AUC), Cohen’s Kappa, Mc-Nemar’s and Wilcoxon tests. Results We recruited 480 patients (49 ± 15 years, 277 female). DTT increased ER1 (from 0.76, CI95% 0.7–0.8 to 0.79, CI95% 0.7–0.8; P =.04) and ER2 (from 0.77 CI95% 0.7–0.8 to 0.80 CI95% 0.8–0.8, P =.02) radiograph—AUCs, sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and positive likelihood ratio. In false negative microbiological cases, DTT suggested COVID-19 pneumonia in 13% (4/30; P =.052, ER1) and 20% (6/30; P =.020, ER2) more than radiograph. DTT showed new or larger opacities in 33–47% of cases with unequivocal opacities in radiograph, new opacities in 2–6% of normal radiographs and reduced equivocal opacities by 13–16%. Kappa increased from 0.64 (CI95% 0.6–0.8) to 0.7 (CI95% 0.7–0.8) for COVID-19 pneumonia probability, and from 0.69 (CI95% 0.6–0.7) to 0.76 (CI95% 0.7–0.8) for pneumonic extension. Conclusion DTT improves radiograph performance and agreement for COVID-19 pneumonia diagnosis and reduces PCR false negatives.