Lung soft tissue mass

The lungs play a very important role in the human body, so once any problem occurs, it will cause great harm to the health of the body, especially soft tissue lumps in the lungs are very common in daily life. It may be a small lung nodule, but a lung nodule is not necessarily lung cancer. Many people have many misunderstandings about this concept. Friends in need can learn more about the relevant knowledge.

1. Soft tissue masses in the lungs may be small lung nodules

Pulmonary nodules refer to soft tissue lesions in the lung parenchyma that are round, clearly defined, and less than 75px in diameter. Clinically, lesions smaller than 75px in the lung parenchyma are called nodules, lesions larger than 75px are called masses, nodules smaller than 37.5px are mostly called small nodules, and nodules smaller than 5mm are called micronodules. The reason for this definition is that the size of the nodule has a certain degree of correlation with the benign or malignant nature of the nodule. Lesions larger than 75px are mostly malignant, while smaller nodules are more likely to be benign.

2. Are lung nodules lung cancer?

The nature of pulmonary nodules varies. Benign ones include inflammatory pseudotumors, hamartomas, tuberculomas, granulomas, lung abscesses, sclerosing hemangiomas, fungus balls, etc., and precancerous lesions include atypical adenomatous hyperplasia. Malignant ones may be primary lung cancer or pulmonary metastases. Knowing the above common causes of lung nodules, you can find that small lung nodules are not necessarily lung cancer. There are also many benign diseases that can manifest as small nodules. Doctors mainly judge the benign or malignant nature of small nodules based on the imaging characteristics of the nodules and their dynamic changes. At present, the diagnostic accuracy of experienced doctors can reach more than 90%.

Lung cancer is the malignant tumor with the highest morbidity and mortality rate in the world. Due to the influence of smoking and air pollution, the number of lung cancer patients in my country has increased rapidly in recent years. Since most lung cancer patients are already in the advanced stage when they seek medical treatment, the treatment effect is not ideal and the long-term survival rate is low, improving the early diagnosis rate of lung cancer is an issue we urgently need to address. Early lung cancer often manifests as small lung nodules. Therefore, as long as we detect small lung nodules in a timely manner and perform differential diagnosis, we can effectively screen out early lung cancer.