ABSENCE OF LEFT-SIDED PREDOMINANCE IN ASBESTOS-RELATED PLEURAL PLAQUES - A CT STUDY

Study objectives: Differences between the number and areas of pleural plaques in every hemithorax: could not be expected a priori. However, previous studies based on chest radiographs reported an unexplained le ft-sided predominance. In this paper, a comparison of summed surfaces and location of plaques calculated from CT studies was performed. Pati ents and methods: Thoracic CT scans from 40 adults with asbestos expos ure and pleural plaques were analyzed. The surface area of every plaqu e was calculated, and summed areas were recorded separately for every hemithorax. The statistical analysis was performed with t-tests for pa ired samples. Emphasis was placed on measurement differences. Measurem ents and: results: The results show lack of significant predominance f or any hemithorax. A total of 668 plaques (352 right and 316 left) wer e measured, with an average area (+/-SD) of 47.81+/-47.72 cm(2) for th e right plaques and 45.34+/-67.32 cm(2) for the left. The mean of diff erences (left minus right areas) was -2.56+/-53.68 and slightly statis tically different from zero (p=0.652). Conclusions: Left-sided predomi nance of asbestos-related pleural plaques is not supported by this stu dy.