In the last short article we talked about the concept of pulmonary nodules. Since no one can determine the nature of the nodule for the patient before the operation, it has caused the entanglement of whether to operate or not. The operation is afraid that it will be benign, and it will be a slap in the face. Can the examination determine the nature of the nodule?
First, do lung puncture, use a long and thin needle to puncture the body from outside the body, and pierce the nodule, use a syringe to aspirate some cells, and observe under a microscope . This is a commonly used method for diagnosing the nature of nodules growing at the edge of the lung,
The second is to do a bronchoscope, insert a tube from the nose into the trachea, enter the lung to find the nodule, and then take some specimens from the nodule, which are also placed in Observed under a microscope, this is a method for diagnosing the nature of nodules close to the central lung.
A major disadvantage of these two diagnostic methods is that nodules less than one centimeter in diameter are generally difficult to obtain. In other words, if you can’t get a specimen, it’s useless to do these tests. There is also a non-invasive, but only reference value examination, called pet CT. This examination is relatively expensive and has a certain amount of radiation, but it is currently the most accurate in judging the nature of nodules among non-invasive examinations. Especially for nodules larger than one centimeter, the accuracy is about 80%. But less than one centimeter is often powerless.
So in most cases, it is difficult to 100% determine the nature of nodules. No matter how big the experts are, there is a certain error rate. The diagnosis rate of each hospital before and after thoracic surgery is also high. It is less than 100%, which means that it is judged to be malignant before surgery, and it is benign in every hospital after surgery.
