reviews current x-Ray-capture only 20% of cases of lung cancer

reviews current x-Ray-capture only 20% of cases of lung cancer -

Each year, nearly 3,000 Norwegians develop lung cancer. reviews current x-Ray-captures only 20 percent of cases. With modern ultralow-dose CT, radiologists have hit the eye of 0 percent of the time bull.

In Norway, no other form of cancer take as many lives as lung cancer. Each year, 2800 Norwegians develop the dreaded disease. Their prognosis is unpromising: six out of seven die within five years

What is particularly regrettable about lung cancer is that the tumor has ample room to grow .. It can therefore develop during a long time before being detected.

Most patients have their first ray imaging diagnosis made by X. Each year, the Oslo University Hospital takes 30 000 X-ray chest. Nationwide, the number exceeds a million.

No one has ever investigated how the x-ray images work with a view to detecting lung cancer and other diseases of the chest area.

"X-ray technology has remained almost unchanged for a hundred years," says Trond Mogens Aaløkken in the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Oslo University Hospital. In collaboration with a group of physicists from the Centre intervention, he made a comparison of the proportion of patients who achieve a correct diagnosis with X-ray images and the number of patients could have received a correct diagnosis with computed tomography (CT), which is a technology to much more modern imaging.

While x-ray images are two-dimensional CT images are three dimensional. CT images can thus reveal the exact location of the tumor.

too much radiation before

So far, the radiation dose from CT examinations of the lungs was a hundred times higher than regular x -ray examinations. A CT scan is equivalent to five years' natural radiation.

radiologists were therefore reluctant to use CT for a first diagnosis of lung cancer.

If the radiological examination is negative, months may pass before the patient was referred for a CT scan. Then it may be too late.

"It is sad that so many people come to be treated too late because hospitals are reluctant to use CT. The survival rate can be increased significantly if lung cancer is first detected CT, "the research magazine Apollon Aaløkken.

in recent years, scanners have become much more effective. The mathematical method for photo restoration has completely changed. This means that the images contain more information, while the radiation dose decreased.

Small radiation now

Researchers at the Action Centre have now succeeded in producing CT images with the same low dose of radiation as a regular x-ray picture.

"We still can not get the same high-quality images by replacing CT with full standard dose ultralow-dose CT, but we asked if the old low quality x- ray examinations can be replaced with ultralow -Dose CT. Although CT dose is almost as low as for chest radiography, we can get much more information from the images, "said associate Professor Anne Catrine Trægde Martinsen, who works at the Centre response and Department of physics, University of Oslo.

To find out what works best, the researchers conducted a pilot study in which they made the two x-ray images and ultra-dose CT images of a small sample of patients for whom the researchers knew good first response.

radiologists who reviewed the images did not know what ailed patients, but they were aware of being part of a research project, and possible diseases they were told to look for all of the region chest.

18 to 89 percent of strokes

results have been remarkable. By studying the X-ray images, radiologists have found the right answer in only 18 percent of cases. In other words, they missed 82 percent of diagnoses. With ultralow-dose CT, radiologists have made a correct diagnosis in 89 percent of cases.

"X-rays are taken out of old habit, but x-ray cancer is detected too late. So it is smart to use ultralow-dose CT to be able to detect the disease in time "says Aaløkken.

again, with x-ray images radiologists detected fifteen times more false positives. A false positive means that the patient is told that he is sick, even if it is as fit as a fiddle.

"false positives are a burden for the patient. They also lead to unnecessary tests, which incur a high cost to society, "said Aaløkken concluded that:

With an examination x-ray, it is likely that you will not have an answer as to whether you are sick, and a response that says you are sick, even if you are healthy. Many are diagnosed too late. This is a dramatic consequence of the fact that health services prioritize the X-ray images above CT images.

Their research has caused a stir in the largest medical meeting in the world for radiology, RSNA, in 2012. Their academic article has been designated as one of the ten best in the conference.

"While our results are extremely convincing, we need to conduct a full-scale test to be absolutely certain."

he question of the economy

Before the diagnostic procedure is changed, researchers need to calculate the cost to society.

"CT machine costs ten times more than an x-ray machine, but it is also expensive to treat patients advanced cancer of the lung.

most people believe that x-ray is a faster process than CT. It is not.

"an x-ray check takes five minutes a CT low-dose verification is almost as fast;. Must be seven minutes the other hand, radiologists need two to three times to interpret. a CT image, "Aaløkken Martinsen and point.

Odd Terje Brustugun, associate professor in the Department of Oncology of the Oslo University Hospital and assistant professor at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, UiO, confirms that Aaløkken and Martinsen are on track.

"As far as I understood, the method can be used on modern machinery existing CT. Before it can replace regular chest x-ray work must be done according to the situation of resources and training of radiographers and radiologists. the method should be tested on a larger number of patients and compared to other techniques on a larger scale before we can conclude how well it works, "said Brustugun out.