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Vol.47 No.4 contents | Japanese/English |
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- Case Report -
A Case of Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma Followed by Computed Tomography for 11 Years
Takashi Yoshioka1, Shingo Harita2, Shoichi Kuyama2, Naoyuki Nogami21Department of Surgery, 2Department of Internal Medicine, Chugoku Central Hospital, Japan
Background. There are some case reports of pulmonary carcinoma followed by chest X-ray for a long time, but only a few case reports mention computed tomography (CT) findings of pulmonary carcinoma with long clinical course. Case. In 1990, a 55-year-old man was found to have a ground-glass opacity (GGO) in S1b of the right lung on CT. The patient was followed with CT every 3 to 6 months, and the lesion gradually enlarged. The follow-up ended after 3 years and 5 months. In 2001, a tumor shadow in the right lung was detected on chest X-ray film again. In the upper lobe of the right lung, chest CT demonstrated a new nodule 2.5 cm in diameter as well as a tumor 4 cm in diameter which had been detected 11 years previously. Both lesions contained GGO in the periphery, and solid shadow in the center of the lesions. As one of the lesions was diagnosed as adenocarcinoma by CT-guided lung needle biopsy, right upper lobectomy with mediastinal lymph node dissection was performed. The histological examination shows well differentiated adenocarcinoma, in which cancer cells replaced alveolar cells in the periphery and invaded the interstitial tissue in the center. Conclusion. CT findings of this case suggest that atypical adenomatous hyperplasia or non-invasive bronchioloalveolar carcinoma of Noguchi's type A may progress to invasive adenocarcinoma.
key words: Pulmonary adenocarcinoma, Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, Ground-glass opacity
Received: February 15, 2006
Accepted: June 12, 2007
JJLC 47 (4): 343-346, 2007
