Evaluating Solitary Pulmonary Nodules

Particularly for small peripheral nodules, skip the conventional bronchoscopy, and consider navigational bronchoscopy.

With increasing use of chest computed tomography (CT) scans, particularly in the setting of lung cancer screening, a marked rise has occurred in incident discoveries of solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs). Limited data are available to guide further evaluation of SPNs, but two recent studies help clarify this process.

Researchers studied routine use of conventional bronchoscopy for evaluating SPNs as part of a Dutch-Belgian CT lung cancer screening trial. The criteria for a positive CT results were nodule diameter >10 mm or fast volume doubling time as determined by serial CT. Of 318 SPNs meeting these criteria (average maximum diameter, 14.6 mm), 178 eventually were found to be malignant, but conventional bronchoscopic biopsy results were pos…

Reviewing Author

Patricia Kritek, MD

Disclosures

Editorial BoardsATS Scholar

Patricia Kritek, MD

Disclosures

Editorial BoardsATS Scholar