I have been in medicine for many years. Now a days we are doing CT SCAN of the chest 1000 times more than what we did 10 years ago . In doing CT scan that often, we are seeing things that we never saw and when we see some abnormality , we tend to do work up or follow up. So we do more consults and procedures and also follow up CT scan - so more CT scans are done . In 194 or so I attended a meeting for work up of LUNG NODULE . The lung nodule is a small density seen in lungs on the Ct scan . The size has to be less than 2.5 cm or an inch. Not much came out of the meeting We continued to do the follow up CT scan. The some one came out with criteria as to how often to do the CT scan based on the size of the nodule. Again for many years no new test was there . This brings me to today's patient.
I have seen known this 70 years old female for many years and she had been smoker and had diagnosis of COPD . She needed oxygen and she also sleep apnea. She had quit smoking for many years but the damage was done and she had some decline and then she did better . One of the days she called me . She had been to Vegas and had hard time breathing and she was quite concerned . She had portable oxygen that she had not used and now she wanted it. So I saw her and started the work up . We did walk her in office called 6 minute walk test and she did drop her oxygen as I expected . I had treated her with steroids and she was little better . I did new CT scan . The Ct scan showed NEW NODULE. So I had to do further work up and so I did PET scan . As I have mentioned in my past blogs , the PET scan is based on glucose uptake and it picks up cancer 80 % of the time . Spo it is good . She had PET scan and also the bronchoscopy . The PET scan did show increased uptake in the nodule suggesting possibility of cancer and also there were lymph nodes positive - suggesting spread of the cancer. My bronchoscopy did not show cancer , but the nodule was too small for me to do biopsy. I decided to send her to 2 different surgeons .She had a node in armpit and in chest . The general surgeon was not concerned and so I did ask radiologist to do the biopsy of the lymph node in armpit and it came back OK . What I was trying to do was to get the diagnosis without chest surgeon needing to any major biopsy. She was oxygen dependent COPD and was not a candidate for resection of the cancer if she did have one and would not do well with and after surgery. The chest surgeon did do biopsy of the chest nodes and they came back OK-NO CANCER.He agreed with me that any additional biopsy will not be possible due to her medical condition.
So at this time in spite of doing many tests I had no diagnosis . I came across a new blood test . This blood test was approved by FDA 2 October 2019. The test does not give diagnosis of cancer , but does give a probability calculation based on presence or absence of certain proteins in blood . So one calculates the probability of a nodule being cancerous based on age , sex, smoking history, size of nodule , which part of lung it is in and the characteristics of the nodule . Then the blood test is done and the probability is 'increased ' or decreased . In the case of my patient the probability was decreased to mid 10 % from 38% before the blood test.
But now I got my bronchoscopy culture for TB and SHE HAD ATYPICAL TB SO THE TEST DID HELP.
I have seen known this 70 years old female for many years and she had been smoker and had diagnosis of COPD . She needed oxygen and she also sleep apnea. She had quit smoking for many years but the damage was done and she had some decline and then she did better . One of the days she called me . She had been to Vegas and had hard time breathing and she was quite concerned . She had portable oxygen that she had not used and now she wanted it. So I saw her and started the work up . We did walk her in office called 6 minute walk test and she did drop her oxygen as I expected . I had treated her with steroids and she was little better . I did new CT scan . The Ct scan showed NEW NODULE. So I had to do further work up and so I did PET scan . As I have mentioned in my past blogs , the PET scan is based on glucose uptake and it picks up cancer 80 % of the time . Spo it is good . She had PET scan and also the bronchoscopy . The PET scan did show increased uptake in the nodule suggesting possibility of cancer and also there were lymph nodes positive - suggesting spread of the cancer. My bronchoscopy did not show cancer , but the nodule was too small for me to do biopsy. I decided to send her to 2 different surgeons .She had a node in armpit and in chest . The general surgeon was not concerned and so I did ask radiologist to do the biopsy of the lymph node in armpit and it came back OK . What I was trying to do was to get the diagnosis without chest surgeon needing to any major biopsy. She was oxygen dependent COPD and was not a candidate for resection of the cancer if she did have one and would not do well with and after surgery. The chest surgeon did do biopsy of the chest nodes and they came back OK-NO CANCER.He agreed with me that any additional biopsy will not be possible due to her medical condition.
So at this time in spite of doing many tests I had no diagnosis . I came across a new blood test . This blood test was approved by FDA 2 October 2019. The test does not give diagnosis of cancer , but does give a probability calculation based on presence or absence of certain proteins in blood . So one calculates the probability of a nodule being cancerous based on age , sex, smoking history, size of nodule , which part of lung it is in and the characteristics of the nodule . Then the blood test is done and the probability is 'increased ' or decreased . In the case of my patient the probability was decreased to mid 10 % from 38% before the blood test.
But now I got my bronchoscopy culture for TB and SHE HAD ATYPICAL TB SO THE TEST DID HELP.
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