Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women worldwide (1). Mortality rates and the success of therapeutic approaches depend on the histologic type of cancer, the involvement of mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes, and the presence of remote metastases. Ideally, the goals of diagnosis and management are to promptly perform surgery in all patients with operable malignant nodules and to avoid unnecessary thoracotomy in those patients with benign lesions. Therefore, accurate tumor staging is essential for choosing the appropriate...

This study was approved by the institutional review board, and informed consent was waived. Patients 99 patients suspected of having pulmonary nodules on the basis of findings at postanterior and lateral chest radiographs or CT were examined with contrast material-enhanced CT, DW MR imaging at Hokkaido University Hospital within two weeks before operation. These 99 patients ( mean age, 66 years; age range, 21-84 years ) included 55 men and 44 women. The final diagnosis of pulmonary nodule was based on pathologic findings in resected...

The pathologicaly diagnosis of 113 lesions, in 99 patients are listed in Table 1. The number of each size pulmonary nodules are listed in Table 2. On DW MR images, 100 of 113 pulmonary nodules (88.5%) were able to be detected, and Rated signal intensity scores, PScRs, PSRs, and ADCs of each group were able to be measured. On DW MR images, the pulmonary nodules that were not able to be detected were 11 metastatic lung tumors with a long-axis diameter of less than 5...

Accurate tumor staging is essential for choosing the appropriate treatment strategy for patients with lung cancer. Recently, DW MR imaging has also been used in the hepatic and thoracic lesion to help differentiate between malignant and benign lesions (14, 15). Although the total number of patients in this study was small, we found that quantitative analysis by using ADC and qualitative analyses of DW MR images obtained with high b values enable characterization of pulmonary nodules. And quantitative analyses of DW MR images by using...

Jun Nakayama MD, LSI Sapporo Clinic, Sapporo, Japan; [email protected]

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