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LungRADS 4B - Airway Nodule

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Let's look at some of the more

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concerning endobronchial nodules.

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Things in the airways that we get concerned could be cancer.

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This is an example of a baseline lung cancer screening CT

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where we see a small smoothly marginated endobronchial

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nodule that was soft tissue density

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and measured that by Hamilton unit measurements.

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It is mural adherent, something we typically see

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with secretions, but we can also see it

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with endobronchial nodules that turn out to be cancer.

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And note we don't have any air within it.

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We don't have that really important sign given its location

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and its presence on a baseline ct.

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The recommendation is a lung ran four A,

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so the patient is called back in three months

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for their interval low dose CT exam,

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and we can see it is in the exact same place.

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It hasn't gone away

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where you would expect secretions to occur.

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So now we're concerned this is a true endo

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bronchial neoplasm.

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It gets upcoded to lung ran four B,

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and the recommendation is that the patients be seen

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by pulmonary medicine.

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Bronchoscopy is usually the next actionable step

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to take a look at this lesion

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to potentially biopsy this lesion.

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Some of the most common benign endo bronchial tumors

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that we see like this smoothly marginated, relatively small,

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are carcinoid tumors.

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It can have a very characteristic pattern on bronchoscopy

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where they're very bright, cherry red,

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and have lots of vascularity on the surface.

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A typical appearance to a bronchoscopist

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of a benign carcinoid tumor.

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But there are certainly other endo bronchial tumors

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that can occur such as endobronchial, hematomas,

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and other lesions such as squamous cell carcinomas

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of the lung.

Report

Faculty

Ella A. Kazerooni, MD, MS

Professor of Radiology, Cardiothoracic Division

University of Michigan

Tags

Oncologic Imaging

Neoplastic

Lungs

Chest

CT