Rare lung tumours – possibilities and limits of diagnosis

Abstract Considering the wide range of both histological and imaging types found in a small group of tumours as an incidence, they can pose real problems in both diagnosis and therapeutic conduct, being difficult to differentiate clinically, imagistically, or histologically from lung tumours commonly found in the clinic (1). Adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and small cell carcinoma together account for approximately 95% of all lung tumours, but the lung is the site of many other types of tumours that may be of epithelial, mesenchymal, neuroendocrine, or lympho-haematopoietic origin, and these latter together account for approximately 5% of all pulmonary tumours (2,3). With a few exceptions, both the clinical manifestations and the imaging aspect are nonspecific, many of them having features in common with the other tumours with high incidence (3). The present study was performed on a group of 82 patients diagnosed with low-incidence lung tumours, aiming at presenting the main epidemiological, clinical, and paraclinical features as well as the difficulties in diagnosing this heterogeneous group of tumours (4,5). The ratio of patients who presented with benign tumours was close to that of the patients who presented with malignant tumours. Age, male sex, smoking, and occupational exposure were not included as risk factors for any tumour nature. Significantly more patients in urban areas have developed both benign and malignant tumours. Patients with malignant tumour pulmonary development presented to the hospital with symptoms in a significantly higher number, compared to those diagnosed with benign tumour. The location of benign tumours was mostly peripheral. Peripheral location of benign tumours required surgery to obtain the histopathological type, having a curative visa in some cases. About a third of those with malignant tumours had secondary lung tumours, or distant metastases.