Background: Although imaging findings along with patients' clinical history may give a clue for the etiology of a pulmonary lesion, the differentiation of benign pulmonary lesions from lung cancer could be challenging.
Objective: The aim of this review article was to increase the awareness of carcinoma mimicking lung lesions.
Methods: This paper was designed to illustrate rare pulmonary tumors and carcinoma mimickers with emphasis on radiologic-pathologic correlation. Pitfalls encountered on CT images and also false positivity of PET-CT scans were also presented.
Conclusion: Several benign pulmonary lesions may grow in size on follow-up and some may show pathologic FDG (18F-fluorodeoxyglucose) uptake, which makes them indistinguishable from lung carcinoma by imaging. In addition, some slow-growing malignant lesions, such as carcinoid, may be false-negative on PET/CT scans.
Keywords: CT; Lung cancer; MRI; PET/CT scan.; benign pulmonary tumors; percutaneous transthoracic biopsy.
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