[The value of CT and MRI in differentiating malignant nodule from tuberculoma]

Correlative study of CT, MRI and pathology was done on 121 cases with solitary pulmonary nodule less than 3 cm in diameter, including 97 malignant nodules and 24 tuberculoma. On CT, the main morphological characteristics of the malignant nodules is lobucation, spiculation, vessele involvement, heterogeneous density, and vacuole sign and air bronchogram, and that of the tuberculoma, the smooth margin, homogeneous density, calcification. On the other hand, the relative signal intensity of these pulmonary nodules were evaluated on T1, T2 weighted image. Our prelminary results indicated that though MRI is inferior to CT in the assessment of the margin and internal feature of the nodule, it can provide further information in differentiating between malignant nodule and tuberculoma.