Computed tomographic scanning of the mediastinum in the staging of bronchogenic carcinoma.

Abstract

We investigated the efficacy of 2-s breath-holding computed tomographic (CT) scans and standard posteroanterior and lateral chest roentgenograms in staging the mediastinum and pulmonary hill in lung cancer. Fifty-one comparisons were made in 49 patients thought to have non-small-cell carcinoma, consecutively chosen to be free of disseminated tumor, and to be suitable candidates for thoracotomy. The CT scans accurately predicted mediastinal neoplastic lymphadenopathy in 15 or 17 instances of proved mediastinal lymph node metastasis for a sensitivity of 88%; specificity was also high (94%) with a true-negative scan in 32 of 34 instances. Standard chest roentgenograms were much less sensitive (47%) than rapid CT scanning in mediastinal staging; there were false-negative interpretations in 9 of 17 instances. Specificity of the methods was the same. both CT scans and standard chest roentgenograms had a sensitivity of only 67% in detecting neoplastic hilar adenopathy; enlarged hilar nodes were noted in only 10 of 15 patients with proved hilar node metastasis. We concluded from this preliminary study that rapid CT scanning shows promise of being useful in the noninvasive staging of the mediastinum of patients with otherwise operable non-small-cell bronchogenic carcinoma; the technique also provides useful guidance during mediastinoscopy and may detect lymphadenopathy not so visualized, but CT scanning appears to have little advantage over standard posteroanterior and lateral chest roentgenograms in staging the pulmonary hill.