Lung Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Lung Cancer, including details on symptoms, smoking, genetics, treatment, causes.

Solitary pulmonary nodules: detection, characterization, and guidance for further diagnostic workup and treatment.

Jeong YJ, Yi CA, Lee KS

Department of Radiology and Center for Imaging Science, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 50, Ilwon-dong, Kangnam-gu, Seoul 135-710, South Korea.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study is to improve radiologists' understanding of the clinical issues involved in making a diagnosis and to guide further diagnostic workup and treatment of solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs). CONCLUSION: Information on the morphologic and hemodynamic characteristics of SPNs provided by dynamic helical CT, with high specificity and reasonably high accuracy, can be used for initial assessment. PET/CT is more sensitive at detecting malignancy than dynamic helical CT, and all malignant nodules may be potentially diagnosed as malignant by both techniques. Therefore, PET/CT may be selectively performed to characterize SPNs that show indeterminate results at dynamic helical CT.

Published 20 December 2006 in AJR Am J Roentgenol, 188(1): 57-68.
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