Pulmonary paragonimiasis: CT findings

Abstract

Though the incidence of paragonimiasis has been remarkably decreased since 1970 , it is still not a rare disease in Korea. Major problems in the diagnosis 0 1' pulmonary paragonimiasis on chest radiography are its differentiation from pulmonary tuberculosis and lung cancer. Chest radiographic findings have been described in detail , but little have been reported on CT findings. We reviewed CT findings of 10 pati ents with pulmonary paragonimiasis. The characteristic CT findings were simil ar to those on chest radiography , su ch as air-space consolidation (70 %) , nodular mass (50 %) , pleural effusion (40 % ) , cystic le sion (30 %), small low density within the mass (30%) , linear density (20%) , pneumothorax (20 % ), and burrow track (20%) ' CT depicted the cyst ic lesions and the burrow tracks more clearly and showed the small worm-retaining cysts within the mass that were not detectable on chest radiography 1n conclus ion , all of these CT findings are useful in the diagnosis of pu lm onary paragonimiasis especiall y when differentiation from tuberculosis or lun g canceris difficult on chest radiography