Fv. Coakley et al., THE DETECTION OF PULMONARY METASTASES WITH PATHOLOGICAL CORRELATION IN A CANINE MODEL - EFFECT OF BREATHING ON THE ACCURACY OF HELICAL CT, American journal of roentgenology, 169(6), 1997, pp. 1615-1618
OBJECTIVE. This study was undertaken to determine the effect of breath
ing on the accuracy of pulmonary nodule detection by helical CT. MATER
IALS AND METHODS. Before sacrifice, four anesthetized dogs with metast
atic osteosarcoma underwent helical CT with a collimation of 5 mm and
a pitch of 2. Helical CT was performed during both induced breath-hold
and normal quiet breathing. Images were reconstructed as contiguous 5
-mm slices, Macroscopically evident metastases were noted postmortem,
Hard-copy CT images were reviewed by 10 radiologists; each circled all
suspected metastases. Helical CT images were compared with postmortem
results to determine true-and false-positive diagnoses. RESULTS. One
hundred thirty-two macroscopically evident pulmonary metastases were i
dentified by pathologic examination. Of these metastases, the 10 radio
logists identified an average of 40 metastases on breath-hold helical
CT and an average of 36 on non-breath-hold CT, These findings were ins
ignificant when analyzed by logistic regression for repeated measures
(p = .8). CONCLUSION. In our animal model, helical CT performed during
normal resting breathing resulted in no significant loss of accuracy
in the detection of pulmonary metastases.