Fact-sheet: Metastasis to lung
Updated on 06/25/2020 at 9:30 AM
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Definition
The most commonly identified primary sites are breast, colon, kidney, uterine, and prostate cancers, as well as head and neck cancers or lung cancer itself.
Radiography
Classic "cannonball" appearance
CT
These nodules are most often dense (soft tissue density), enhance, and have regular, round or oval margins.
Others have ill-defined margins, sometimes with a ground-glass halo, which may indicate an early perimetastatic alveolar hemorrhage phase.
A miliary, pseudo-tuberculous, hematogenous form with homogeneous micronodular dissemination is possible but very rare.
Some metastatic nodules may be hypervascular and show intense contrast enhancement, often in the case of melanoma.
The semiology of Lymphangitic carcinomatosis includes rhomboid interlobular septal thickening, more or less laden with micronodules.
Differential diagnosis
– Hematogenous nodules of sepsis;– Wegener granulomatosis in its nodular excavated form– Histiocytosis X or Langerhans cell granulomatosis