Cisterna chyli in patients with malignancy--is there a correlation between changes in cisterna volume and progression or regression of the tumor?
The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential correlation between the size of the cisterna chyli (CC) and the tumor size in patients with malignancies on computed tomography (CT).


METHODS
Out of a 3000 patient cohort 138 patients with histologically confirmed malignant disease, a detectable CC on CT and at least two CT scans within a 6 month period were included in this retrospective study. Out of 525 scans a total of 711 lesion intervals were evaluated. The volume of the CC and all target lesions (up to three per scan) were recorded. The Pearson correlation coefficient for the two parameters of changes in lesion size and CC size was calculated for the whole cohort and for a 33 patient subgroup that included only patients with tumors that showed the closest association with large CC in a previous study.


RESULTS
The mean difference in lesion size for all 711 intervals was -1165μl. The mean difference in CC size for all 711 intervals was -46.6μl. The respective Pearson correlation coefficient was .05 with a non-significant p-value of .1823 (subgroup: r=.04, p=.6358).


CONCLUSIONS
No significant correlation between the progression or regression of malignant disease and the size of the cisterna chyli could be found.
Feuerlein
Sebastian
S
Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University of Ulm, Germany. sfeuerlein@yahoo.com
Kern
Marco
M
Muche
Rainer
R
Ernst
Andrea S
AS
Juchems
Markus S
MS
Pauls
Sandra
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015897:Comorbidity; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009929:Organ Size; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013897:Thoracic Duct / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult