[Early detection and differential diagnosis of metastatic lung tumor]

In general, the prognosis of cases with metastatic pulmonary tumor is extremely poor. However, in cases where primary lesion is well controlled and no distant metastasis except the lung is clinically found, the pulmonary metastasis could be curable through the early detection of metastasis followed by radical surgery equally to the case with primary lung tumor. The candidate of this curable metastasis is the case with of nodular metastasis with a small number. I discuss the X-ray figure, differential diagnosis, diagnostic accuracy of the number of metastasis, and the interval of follow-up care after treatment of primary malignancy.