KBB-Forum 2022 , Cilt 21, Sayı 3

OTOLARYNGOLOGY MANIFESTATIONS OF COVID-19 PATIENTS DURING THE PANDEMIC ERA

Dr. Merve TUNCA1, Dr. Bahar KAYAHAN SİRKECİ1, Dr. Volkan YÜCEL1, Dr. Taylan GÜN1
1Liv Hospital Ankara, Kulak Burun Boğaz ve Baş-Boyun Cerrahisi, Ankara, Türkiye Since the first COVID-19 case announced in Turkey on March 11, 2020; otolaryngologists are a high-risk group for COVID-19. Initial symptoms are fever, headache, cough, dyspnea, sore throat, nasal congestion and anosmia. In this paper, we included 205 patients with COVID-19 who have RT-PCR (real time polymerase chain reaction) test positivity (106 patients) or typical Thorax CT (computed tomography) signs (99 patients with gorund glass opacities, infiltrations, bronchovascular thickening). The medical records of all patients who visited our ENT department at Liv Hospital Ankara, from March 2020 to January 2022 were collected. We compared two groups of patients who have RT-PCR positivity and positive Thorax CT signs according to their age, gender and symptom distributions. Mean age was higher than in patients of Thorax CT signs positive group in comparison with patients of RT-PCR positive group (p=0,001). Also mean age of the patients who have dyspnea was higher than in patients who don't have this symptom (p=0,003). In the evaluation of gender distribution, there was not statistically significant difference between two groups and the symptom distribution according to the gender were similar in two groups (p>0,05). Fever, headache, cough, weakness, dyspnea, anosmia and sore throat symptoms were higher than in patients of Thorax CT signs positive group in comparison with patients of RT-PCR positive group (p<0,05). Keywords : COVID-19, ENT, otolaryngology, symptom, manifestation, pandemic, CT, RT-PCR