Keywords:
Lung, Lymph nodes, Mediastinum, CT, PACS, CT-High Resolution, Sclerosis, Diagnostic procedure, Chronic obstructive airways disease, Connective tissue disorders, Cysts
Authors:
F. Ufuk, B. Yagci, P. Cakmak, E. Sağtaş, M. ARSLAN; Denizli/TR
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-0238
Methods and materials
This retrospective study received approval from our institutional local ethics committee.
Due to the retrospective nature of the study,
informed consent was not required.
The patients diagnosed with systemic sclerosis (SS) were retrospectively analyzed. From these patients who underwent HRCT scan within one month after the initial diagnosis and had SS-ILD on HRCT were included in the study.
Patients with history of malignancy or smoking and patients with additional rheumatologic disease were excluded from the study.
All HRCT scans were obtained in the supine position with using a multi-slice CT scanner (Brilliance 16; Philips Healthcare,
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands) with full inspiration and the following parameters: Kv,
140; mAs,
280; detector collimation,
16 × 0.8/0.4 mm; 1 mm slice thickness; 10 mm slice interval; field of view (FOV),
35 cm and matrix,
512 x 512.
Expiratory scans at three levels (upper,
middle and lower zones) were obtained.
The all HRCT images of the SS patients were evaluated by two radiologist by consensus. Axial HRCT images of the chest were evaluated in the lung window (window center,
−600 HU; window width,
1600 HU) for the presence of air trapping,
bronchiectasis,
dilatation of the distal esophagus (with a maximum esophageal diameter > 9 mm),
lung cysts and aspiration compatible lung nodules (such as tree-in-bud pattern or parenchymal infiltrates).
Pulmonary involvement dominant pattern (ground glass or honeycombing) and the presence of bronchiololectasis in ground glass opacity areas also noted.
In our study we used the staging system reported by Goh et al.
[9] to categorize the patients having limited/extensive disease on HRCT.
In this staging system,
patients with a HRCT extent < 10% were categorized as limited,
and patients with a HRCT extent > 30% were categorized as extensive disease.
Forced vital capacity (FVC) values were evaluated in patients with HRCT extent of 10-30% (indeterminate disease).
If FVC value <70% were categorized as extensive disease and FVC > 70% were categorized as limited disease.
Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Windows (Version 18.0: SPSS Inc.
IBM Corp,
Chicago,
IL,
USA).
Continuous and categorical data are reported as mean ± standard deviation,
frequency and percentage.
Intergroup comparisons were performed using independent t-test or a Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables.
Spearman’s correlation coefficients were used to detect the relationship between continuous variables.
A P value <0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.