Prevalence of alterations in chest computerized tomography in patients with head and neck cancer

• Autor(a) principal: Paiva,Diógenes
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Curioni,Otávio Alberto, Souza,Ricardo Pires de, Vianna,Débora, França,Luciano José, Sobreiro,Luís Eduardo, Dedivitis,Rogério Aparecido, Rapoport,Abrão
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista do Colégio Brasileiro de Cirurgiões
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-69912015000700356
• topic: Carcinoma, Squamous Cell; Head and Neck Neoplasms; Tomography, X-Ray Computed; Neoplasm Staging; Mass Screening

Objective: to assess the prevalence of abnormalities found by computed tomography (CT) of the chest in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Methods: we retrospectively analyzed chest CT exams of 209 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The CT findings were stratified as inflammatory / infectious, parenchymal, nodular uncharacteristic and nodular metastatic / tumoral Results: alterations were diagnosed in 66.6% of patients. Of these, 25.3% represented emphysema; 18.8%, uncharacteristic micronodules; 12.9%, metastases; 11.9%, thoracic lymph node enlargements; and in 6.6% we detected active pulmonary tuberculosis or its sequelae, pneumonia or inflammatory / infectious signs and pleural thickening or effusion. Conclusion: the prevalence of exams with alterations and the considerable rate of detected metastases indicate that chest CT should be required for diagnostic and / or staging in cases of head and neck cancer.