Chest CT Airway and Vascular Measurements in Females with COPD or Long-COVID

Chest CT provides a way to quantify pulmonary airway and vascular tree measurements. In patients with COPD, CT airway measurement differences in females are concomitant with worse quality-of-life and other outcomes. CT total airway count (TAC), airway lumen area (LA), and wall thickness (WT) also differ in females with long-COVID. Our objective was to evaluate CT airway and pulmonary vascular and quality-of-life measurements in females with COPD as compared to ex-smokers and patients with long-COVID. Chest CT was acquired 3-months post-COVID-19 infection in females with long-COVID for comparison with the same inspiratory CT in female ex-smokers and COPD patients. TAC, LA, WT, and pulmonary vascular measurements were quantified. Linear regression models were adjusted for confounders including age, height, body-mass-index, lung volume, pack-years and asthma diagnosis. Twenty-one females (53 ± 14 years) with long-COVID, 17 female ex-smokers (69 ± 9 years) and 13 female COPD (67 ± 6 years) patients were evaluated. In the absence of differences in quality-of-life scores, females with long-COVID reported significantly different LA (<i>p</i> = 0.006) compared to ex-smokers but not COPD (<i>p</i> = 0.7); WT% was also different compared to COPD (<i>p</i> = 0.009) but not ex-smokers (<i>p</i> = 0.5). In addition, there was significantly greater pulmonary small vessel volume (BV₅) in long-COVID as compared to female ex-smokers (<i>p</i> = 0.045) and COPD (<i>p</i> = 0.003) patients and different large (BV₁₀) vessel volume as compared to COPD (<i>p</i> = 0.03). In females with long-COVID and highly abnormal quality-of-life scores, there was CT evidence of airway remodelling, similar to ex-smokers and patients with COPD, but there was no evidence of pulmonary vascular remodelling.<b>Clinical Trial Registration:</b> www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT05014516 and NCT02279329.