Roentgenogram of the month. Migrating lung tumor

Our plain-English summary of Roentgenogram of the month. Migrating lung tumor, by R.H. Hayward (Chest, 1974).

The study

• Author: R.H. Hayward
• Journal: Chest
• Published: 1974;66(1):77-8
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This was a short case report about one patient at Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas, published in a "Roentgenogram of the Month" feature. A 68-year-old man had no symptoms and an unremarkable physical examination, but a routine chest X-ray showed a mass in the lower right chest. The doctors tried several times to put a biopsy needle into the mass under fluoroscopy (live X-ray). The attempts failed because the mass repeatedly changed position when the needle tip pressed on it, and a series of X-ray images showed it in different places and at different distances from the chest wall. At surgery, the tumor measured 6 by 5 by 3 cm. It hung from a small stalk attached to the pleura (the lining) on the right lower lobe of the lung. The diagnosis was a pedunculated (stalked) benign pleural mesothelioma. Drawing on earlier reports by other authors, the author wrote that such stalked pleural tumors are nearly always benign and generally of the fibrous type. The article does not mention asbestos or the man's work history.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: case report (single patient, "Roentgenogram of the Month" feature)
• Who was studied: one 68-year-old man without symptoms, seen at Scott and White Clinic, Temple, Texas
• Main results:
  • A routine chest X-ray showed a mass in the right lower thorax in this patient, who had no symptoms and an unremarkable physical examination.
  • Repeated attempts at a needle biopsy under fluoroscopy failed because the mass repeatedly changed position in response to pressure from the needle tip.
  • At thoracotomy, a stalked pleural tumor measuring 6 x 5 x 3 cm was found, attached by a small stalk to the lateral pleural surface of the right lower lobe.
  • The diagnosis was pedunculated benign pleural mesothelioma.
• The authors' conclusion: The author wrote that such stalked (pedunculated) pleural tumors are nearly always benign and generally of the fibrous type, and that a pleural origin is established if a stalk is identified or mobility is shown.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer, Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Roentgenogram of the month — C.L. Adams (1965)
• Migrating pleural plaque in a patient with asbestos induced pleural disease: a case report — C. Eisenhawer, M.K. Felten, et al. (2017)
• Effect of tobacco smoking on the presence of asbestosis at postmortem and on the reading of irregular opacities on roentgenograms in asbestos-exposed workers — E. Hnizdo, G.K. Sluis-Cremer (1988)
• The detection of thoracic abnormalities using posterior-anterior (PA) vs PA and oblique roentgenograms — R.B. Reger, R.G. Ames, et al. (1982)
• Effect of tobacco smoking on the presence of asbestosis at postmortem and on the reading of irregular opacities on roentgenograms in asbestos-exposed workers — A. Kraut, J. Godbold, et al. (1989)
• Pulmonary needle aspiration biopsy in the diagnosis of Pancoast tumors — W.J. Walls, J.R. Thornbury, et al. (1974)

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