How are lung nodules diagnosed?

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
How are lung nodules diagnosed?]

[Music playing]

[Text on screen: Jasleen Pannu, MBBS
Pulmonary and critical care medicine physician
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Jasleen Pannu, MBBS: Lung nodule is diagnosed in a few different ways. First, a physician assesses the risk of the nodule being malignant, including the risk factors of the patients, how it looks, how big is it, is it completely round, does it have spiky ends, and where is the location of the nodule. 

[Music fades]

And then we can do different tests to define further the reason why the nodule is there, including a PET scan. Sometimes a biopsy can be done to find out the reason behind the nodule.

A lung nodule is diagnosed in a multidisciplinary way, which means a radiologist, a pulmonologist, an internal medicine doc, or a thoracic surgeon could all contribute in diagnosing a lung nodule. It's initially detected on an X-ray, or more often, a CT scan. And then the patient is most often going to see either a lung doctor or a primary care physician to find out what the nodule looks like and what needs to be done about it.

So, how to determine whether a nodule is benign or malignant is a very intricate process that involves multidisciplinary collaboration. So, once the patient is referred to us who has a lung nodule, we assess the patient's risk for having cancer, depending on their risk factors. We assess how the nodule looks, whether it is more than a certain size, or certain configuration. Is it regular or irregular? What is the location of the nodule?

Following that, we may do certain tests for the patient, like a PET scan, to assess if the nodule has any suspicious activity in it. And depending on the results, we may further go to a biopsy. And the biopsy is usually the confirmatory test for whether a nodule is benign or malignant. 

[Music playing]

But if the risk for being cancer is really low, we don't always need a biopsy. So that's why the initial risk prediction is really important.

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
For more information, visit: wexnermedical.osu.edu/lungnodule]

[Music fades]