A controlled study of positron-emission-tomography and positron-emission-tomography/computed tomography in differential diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules—report of 60 cases

The differential diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs) remains a challenge. It is acknowledged that combining positron-emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) offers the most reliable noninvasive method for the diagnosis of SPNs. Since Townsend et al1 developed integrated PET/CT in 1999, this technique has increasingly been introduced into clinical practice. To date, nuclear medicine physicians have usually undertaken PET/CT diagnosis, but the question is surfacing as how to make full use of the information of CT image to improve the accuracy of SPN diagnosis. To answer this question, we performed a retrospective study on 60 patients with SPNs. METHODS Patients Between October 2003 and October 2004, 60 consecutive patients with SPNs (age range 26-85 years; median 56 years) underwent PET/CT examination, including 30 with benign and 30 with malignant lesions. Most of the patients had undergone CT scan before PET/CT. None of the patients received chemotherapy or radiation therapy previously.