Is CT Scan a Significant Mode of Investigation to Diagnose Carcinoma of the Pulmonary System

Pulmonary nodules are one of the common radiologic findings. Now a day these lesions are typically discovered incidentally. The simple chest radiography or computed tomography commonly called as CT is the modern tools where we find these lesions. The routine CT when carried out for some other reasons will incidentally find these lesions. The problem does not begin when the lesion is identified but instead it starts when the physicians must decide how to pursue an evaluation of a nodule once it has been identified. With the increased use of computed tomography, solitary pulmonary nodules or the multiple small nodules are identified more often because of the relatively higher resolution of this modality compared with that of radiography. In one study of CT screening for lung cancer in persons who smoke, 13 percent of patients had pulmonary nodules larger than 5 mm at baseline. Another study of full-body CT screening in adults demonstrated pulmonary nodules in 14.8 percent of all scans, although this included nodules smaller than 5 mm as well. Overall, the estimated prevalence of solitary pulmonary nodules in the literature ranges from 8 to 51 percent.