A. Ravi Kumar1, B. Vinod Kumar2, U. Syam Sunder Rao3, G. Prathima4
BACKGROUND
Lung carcinomas are quite commonly diagnosed. Thanks to the ever increasing smokers’ population. Majority of the city dwellers are at a higher risk of having this disease when compared to the village counterparts. The stigma through which the person and the family have to undergo before confirming the diagnosis is enormous. So the radiographic methods of diagnosing the malignancies have to improve. Before confirming the diagnosis, the radiologists, the treating physicians should be somewhat confident about the diagnosis so as to prepare the patients and their relatives for the most probable diagnosis before the confirmatory report. The confirmatory procedures include the PET scan and the Histopathology. Both are time consuming procedures and in an economy like ours, finding a PET scanning centre is rather difficult. So the most probable diagnosis has to be thought of using minimal resource. This study puts in a sincere effort to understand and evaluate the pulmonary nodule when identified by a CT scan. This paper is intended to help the practicing radiologists and also make life easy for a practicing physician to identify correctly the lesions and also help the patients to prevent further progression of the disease.
METHODS
The study was a cross-sectional study. The sample size of the study consisted of thirty patients. CT scan was done in thirty patients who were identified to have lung nodules either by other mode of radiological studies or first time identified in a CT scan itself. The study was conducted in Fathima Institute of Medical Sciences, Kadapa. The study was conducted from 2014 to 2015.
RESULT
Non-solid nodules were more in number when compared to the solid nodules. All the non-solid nodules were confirmed to be adenomas. Eighty percent of the nodules which were more than 8 mm in size were confirmed to be malignant. One hundred percent of the spiculated border on CT was confirmed to be malignant. In the present study, the lobulated mass was confirmed to be malignant in one hundred percent of cases. One case that was infectious origin was also lobulated in appearance. In eighty percent of the confirmed malignant cases, the halo sign was negative. Calcification was negative in one hundred percent cases of confirmed malignancy and the cavitation with thick wall was seen in one hundred percent of confirmed malignancy. Air bronchogram was positive in all the cases of confirmed cases of malignancy. Increase in the size of more than 4 mm was confirmed to be malignant in one hundred percent of cases.
CONCLUSION The different characteristic features of the presenting pulmonary nodules has been identified and discussed successfully. The different features once the lesions have been confirmed by PET and histopathological reports gives an extra edge of suspecting the cases early and also helps to diagnose the life-threatening diseases. The life-threatening diseases if diagnosed and evaluated early gives the physicians that extra precious time to respond to the needs of the patients and also in some cases to save the life of the patients.
