Learning objectives
To identify and describe the most common findings in different thoracic structures that are usually missed during the evaluation of chest CTs; to suggest a method to examine everything in the CT scan throughout the use of acronyms,
to be sure you don’t miss any lesion.
Background
During chest CT examinations,
radiologists usually focus on the parenchyma,
and mostly look for signs in reference to the clinical request.
Therefore,
it is possible that they don’t pay enough attention to the rest of the structures,
like soft tissues or vessels.
These structures can often be the site of important lesions that risk to be missing in the report and might have a clinical relevance.
Findings and procedure details
Using our database,
we have selected all the chest CTs performed during the last year (From January to December 2018) and we reviewed over 2600 CTs; we have therefore selected all the reports in which accessory findings were reported and we have studied the images of these exams.
We studied them twice: once focusing on the clinical suspect and once again using a methodic approach to analyze the whole image.
In a large amount of chest CT scans,
at the first look,
we missed several...
Conclusion
Considering the most common extra-parenchymal lesions that are left unnoticed in the chest CTs and what they represent,
radiologists should be aware of a possible searching model based on acronyms in order to decrease the risk of missing any important finding in the report of a chest CT.
In this case,
we created a simple mnemonic phrase: “Many view big diseases,
but smaller might woefully escape”.
This phrase contains the acronym that includes every structure we need to strictly analyze in a chest CT other...
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