Chest
Clinical Investigations; Articles; Selected ReportsPET-FDG Imaging and Transthoracic Needle Lung Aspiration Biopsy in Evaluation of Pulmonary Lesions: A Comparative Risk-Benefit Analysis
Section snippets
Patient Selection
Patients were selected from an ongoing prospective study of PET-FDG imaging in the evaluation of solitary pulmonary nodules. All 33 subjects who had both TTNA and PET-FDG imaging as part of their clinical evaluation were analyzed for this study. Subjects were evaluated at Creighton University Medical Center and the Veterans' Affairs Medical Center. All patients had plain chest x-ray films and CT scans of the chest and mediastinum. Lung lesions were classified as follows: (a) solitary pulmonary
Demographic and Clinical Data
Demographic and clinical data in 33 patients with 35 pulmonary lesions suspected to be malignant who underwent both PET imaging and TTNA is listed in Table 1.
There were 26 men and 7 women. The mean age was 65.15 years (range, 41 to 88 years). Of the 28 patients where spirometry was available, 20 (71%) had chronic airflow obstruction.
Lung lesions were as follows: solitary pulmonary nodules, 22; hilar lesions, 4; lung masses, 8; and multiple pulmonary nodules, 1. There were 26 malignant lesions
Discussion
The objective of the study was to determine whether a noninvasive test, such as PET-FDG imaging of the lung, was as efficacious as TTNA, an invasive procedure, in differentiating benign from malignant lung lesions. The results from our study demonstrate that PET-FDG imaging of the lung was as efficacious as TTNA and showed a trend toward higher sensitivity in identifying malignant lung lesions. Moreover, patients who underwent TTNA had a significant complication rate of pneumothorax, whereas
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Kay Ryschon for statistical analysis and Dee Peters for secretarial assistance.
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