Tumoral and non-tumoral trachea stenoses: evaluation with three-dimensional CT and virtual bronchoscopy

Abstract

Background: We evaluated the ability of 3D-CT and virtual bronchoscopy to estimate trachea stenosis in comparison to conventional axial CT and fiberoptic bronchoscopy, with a view to assist thoracic surgeons in depicting the anatomical characteristics of tracheal strictures.

Correlation of the Imaging Findings with Bronchoscopic Findings for the Detection of Endobronchial Lesions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Koletsis et al [22]       were males, 115 were females but in one study with 64 participants the gender of those was not mentioned and also the gender of the controls was not mentioned. The endobronchial lesions under study proved to be malignant in the majority of cases (474/643) but a significant proportion had a benign lesion (168/643) and in one case the lesion remained unidentified.…”

“…From those selected, 8 were excluded from this study, three papers did not compare the imaging with the bronchoscopic findings, two papers did not use the detection of the lesion as the target point of the study, in one, there was no recording of the imaging findings, in one there was no clear display of the statistical analysis of the results and in another, the selection of the patients included a high risk of bias [27][28][29][30][31][32][33] (Table 2). As a result, 10 articles were finally selected and analyzed for our review study [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

“…After reviewing the titles and abstracts, 18 articles met the criteria and were candidates for full text analysis [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. The articles that were excluded in this first phase of selection were no relevant in the scope of this review.…”

“…The studies that were included in this review were prospective or retrospective studies concerning the imaging and bronchoscopic characteristics of endobronchial lesions [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. The individuals that were included in the studies were patients of any age with an endobronchial lesion which could be malignant, benign or undiagnosed.…”

Modern imaging of the tracheo-bronchial tree

“…In either case, there is a combination of necrosis and/or fibrosis, leading to a progressive stenosis that is typically in a subglottic position or in the upper third of the trachea. CT is highly accurate in detecting the extent of such lesions and is, therefore, very useful in treatment planning for stent placement and subsequent follow-up [46][47][48] .…”