title: Coronal multiplanar reconstruction view from whole lung thin-section CT by multidetector-row CT: determination of malignant or benign lesions and differential diagnosis in 68 cases of solitary pulmonary nodule.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the coronal multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) view in comparison with transverse helical thin-section CT for both the determination of malignant or benign lesions and the differential diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty-eight cases of pathologically proved solitary pulmonary nodule less than 3 cm in diameter were enrolled in this study. For the routine study, transverse helical thin-section CT (1.25 mm collimation, FOV 20 cm) covering the areas with solitary pulmonary nodules as well as whole lung helical thin-section CT (2.5 mm collimation, 1.25 mm reconstruction interval, FOV 34.5 cm, pitch 6:1, high-spatial frequency algorithm) were scanned with a multidetector-row CT (MDCT) scanner. From the whole lung thin-section CT data, coronal MPR views (2.5 mm slice thickness) were reconstructed on a workstation. ROC analysis was used for an observer performance study, in which three observers indicated their confidence level for the determination of malignant or benign lesion for the nodules by means of transverse thin-section CT and coronal MPR. In addition, the observers recorded appropriate disease entities as the final diagnosis of each case. Accuracies of the final diagnosis based on the two sets of images were compared with McNemer' s test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In terms of the determination of malignant or benign lesion, there was no significant difference between the two sets of images (coronal MPR and transverse thin-section CT; mean Az=0.853 and 0.854, respectively). In addition, accuracy of the final diagnosis based on coronal MPR views (74%) was almost equal to that based on transverse thin-section CT (71%) (p=0.3).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The diagnostic efficacy of the coronal MPR view is comparable to that of transverse thin-section CT for the evaluation of solitary pulmonary nodules.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Japan.
authors.forename: Mitsuko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsubamoto
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Johkoh
authors.forename: Takenori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kozuka
authors.forename: Osamu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Honda
authors.forename: Mitsuhiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koyama
authors.forename: Sachiko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Murai
authors.forename: Atsuo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: Hiromitsu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sumikawa
authors.forename: Noriyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tomiyama
authors.forename: Seiki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hamada
authors.forename: Shuji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Hironobu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kudo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D003074:Solitary Pulmonary Nodule / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*