CT scan: new findings - 1255537

Hi Izabela,

The term "ground glass" refers to a finding on a scan that does not appear solid but rather a general haziness. In his post on "Imaging Features of Nodules", Dr. West has described these findings as follows:

"Solid nodules appear as pretty uniformly white on the CT..., while those that are just hazy clouds are called ground-glass opacities, or GGOs. In between is a nodule that appears to have areas of non-solid haziness next to other areas that are solid. These are called, coincidently, semi-solid nodules or opacities."

He goes on to say:

" When I hear GGO, I think that this could be a pneumonia (often described as consolidation, another term for similar haziness that is more dense and obscures the underlying blood vessels in a way that a GGO shouldn’t), but it’s also a classic descriptor of a BAC cancer. Many of us think that the GGO portion corresponds to a non-invasive or “pure BAC” component, while the solid part of a semi-solid nodule often corresponds to an invasive portion of an adenocarcinoma that has some non-invasive BAC features around it" -http://cancergrace.org/lung/2007/11/10/risk-of-ca-among-spns/

The bottom line is that this could represent cancer, but it could also be something else. It's also worth noting that this is a very small nodule. Your doctor, with access to your entire medical history and an opportunity to examine you, would be able to make a better determination of the probable nature of this nodule. Based on that information and the small size of the nodule, he or she may want to watch the nodule over time to see whether it grows; even if it is cancer, a non-invasive BAC nodule can be extremely slow-growing.

JimC
Forum moderator