Role of multidetector computed tomography in evaluation of suspected bronchogenic carcinoma

Abstract

Background: Bronchogenic  carcinoma  is  the  leading cause  of  cancer  deaths  in  developed  countries  and  is  rising  at  alarming  rates  in developing countries. Deaths due to lung cancer are more than those due to colorectal, breast and prostate cancers put together.  CT remains the routine imaging procedure for determining resectability and assessing intra- and extra thoracic spread of lung cancer.Methods: 30 patients with strong clinical / radiological suspicious of bronchogenic carcinoma were included in this study. MDCT was carried out and its provisional diagnosis of bronchogenic carcinoma was correlated with pathological diagnosis obtained on bronchoscopic biopsy / CT guided FNAC.Results: Patient’s age ranged between 45 to 80 years with the mean age of 59 years. There was significant male preponderance (26 males) with smoking being the most common risk factor (83.3%). Cough (83.3%) and dyspnea (80%) were the commonest symptoms. The most common radiological manifestation was central hilar mass seen in 20 (66.6%) patients and peripheral mass seen in 10 (33.3%) patients. Provisional CT diagnosis was found in complete correlation with pathological diagnosis made on bronchoscopy biopsy/ CT guided FNAC in 28 (93.3%) patients and others 2 patients diagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis, non caseating granulomatous inflammation on histopathological diagnosis. Squamous cell carcinoma was the commonest histopathological type seen in 16 (53.3%) patients followed by adenocarcinoma seen in 8 (26.6%) patients.Conclusions: Multidetector computed tomography plays an important role in evaluating and staging of bronchogenic carcinoma.CT had the high predictive value in evaluating bronchogenic carcinoma and found to be 93.3%.