PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Coward, Joanne
AU  - Nightingale, Julie
AU  - Hogg, Peter
TI  - The Clinical Dilemma of Incidental Findings on the Low-Resolution CT Images from SPECT/CT MPI Studies
AID  - 10.2967/jnmt.116.174557
DP  - 2016 Sep 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
PG  - 167--172
VI  - 44
IP  - 3
4099  - http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/44/3/167.short
4100  - http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/44/3/167.full
SO  - J. Nucl. Med. Technol.2016 Sep 01; 44
AB  - Incidental findings are common in medical imaging. There is a particularly high prevalence of incidental findings within the thorax, the most frequent being pulmonary nodules. Although pulmonary nodules have the potential to be malignant, most are benign, resulting in a high number of false-positive findings. Low-resolution CT images produced for attenuation correction of SPECT images are essentially a by-product of the imaging process. The high number of false-positive incidental findings detected on these attenuation-correction images causes a reporting dilemma. Early detection of cancer can be beneficial, but false-positive findings and overdiagnosis can be detrimental to the patient. Attenuation-correction CT images are not of diagnostic quality, and further diagnostic tests are usually necessary for a definitive diagnosis to be reached. Given the high number of false-positive findings, the psychologic effect on the patient should be considered. This review recommends caution when the findings on attenuation-correction CT images are routinely reported.