The Primary of single photonemisson computed tomography in diagnosis of multifical pulmonary lesions / 中国癌症杂志

ABSTRACT

Background and purpose:Single photonemisson computed tomography(PET) is recently available in many cities. It has been extensively used for the diagnosis of pulmonary lesions,especially in the differential diagnose of solitary pulmonary nodules(SPN) with PET.We retrospectively analysed 20 lung tumour patients with multifical lesions to investigate the value of PET scanning. Methods:20 cases with lung tumour patients who had multifical lesions were analyzed , the patients were treated from August 2004 to June 2005 in Shanghai Chest Hospital. All patients were examined with PET,X-ray,CT(computerized tomography) and SPECT(single photonemisson computed tomography). Some of them were detected with MRI because they were suspected to have spinal metastases. 14 cases were pathologically proved as lung cancer.Results:All(100%) of the primary lesions were positively detected by PET scanning. In addition to 100% sensitivity to the primary lesions, 6 cases of the metastatic lesions were confirmed by PET,in which 2 of them were pulmonary nodules (all bigger than 1cm in size),3 were mediastinal lymph nodes,and the other was a secondary tumor of the spine. 14 cases were negative on the PET image, 4 of 14 cases were false negative, 2 of them had pulmonary nodules (all smaller than 1cm), the other 2 were either mediastinal lymph nodes or a secondary tumors of the spine.Conclusions:PET scanning has high value in terms of improving diagnosis of the primary and metastatic pulmonary lesions, it is useful to define stage of tumor and chose proper treatment for the patients. PET scanning may not be a efficient tool when the size of nodules is smaller than 1 cm. Some of the secondary tumors of the spine maybe be PET negative.