Comparison of PET/CT with Invasive Staging and Pathological Staging of Lung Cancer; Analysis of 240 Cases

Özet

Objective: After a lung cancer diagnosis, determination of tumor invasion and involvement of mediastinal lymph nodes will indicate tumor stage and operability. The aim of this study was to compare and analyze the lymph node metastasis findings of positron emission to-mography–computed tomography (PET/CT) using invasive staging methods and pathological staging in 240 lung cancer cases.Methods: The PET/CT examination of 240 patients included in the study revealed true positivity in 60 patients, false positivity in 45, true negativity in 103, and false negativity in 4 patients. Univariate analysis indicated that the incidence of occult N2 disease was found to be statistically significantly higher in right upper lobe tumors (p=0.01).Results: Of the 240 patients evaluated, mediastinal sampling was performed using endo-bronchial ultrasound (EBUS) in 160 patients, and mediastinoscopy in 80 patients.The high specificity rate of mediastinoscopy was found to be close to the accuracy of EBUS.Conclusion: As a result of the high specificity and accuracy rates, EBUS and mediastinoscopy are among the predominant staging methods. However,we think that mediastinoscopy is still the gold standard method. Total mediastinal lymph node dissection can determine the accurate stage of the disease and aid in determining the prognosis and treatment protocol.