[Computed tomography in the differential diagnosis of inflammatory and neoplastic lung diseases]

Fourty patients suspected of having a bronchogenic carcinoma but who, in fact, had inflammatory pulmonary lesions were examined by computed tomography. The findings were compared with the CT appearances of 40 patients with bronchogenic carcinomas (20 of these underwent surgery). In 28 patients (70%) suspected of having a bronchogenic carcinoma, the CT findings indicated an inflammatory lesion. As might have been expected, there was no single CT criterion which is found only in inflammatory lesions. Chronic inflammatory processes and inflammatory pseudo-tumours (chronic pneumonias and tuberculosis) cannot be distinguished from malignant tumours by CT (12 out of 40 patients, 30%).