• Ikuma Kasuga, Hiromi Maezawa, Sanae Gamo, Yoshimi Yokoe, Yuri Yanagihara, Tomoko Sugiyama, Michiyo Tokura, Mayumi Okayama, and Osamu Ohtsubo.
• Health Care Center, Shinjuku Oiwake Clinic and Ladies Branch, Tokyo, Japan.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Jul 22; 101 (29): e29261e29261.

BackgroundRecent studies have shown that low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is effective for the early detection of lung cancer. However, the utility of chest radiography (CR) and LDCT for other thoracic diseases has not been as well investigated as it has been for lung cancer. This study aimed to clarify the usefulness of the veridical method in the screening of various thoracic diseases.MethodsAmong individuals who had received general health checkups over a 10-year period, those who had undergone both CR and LDCT were selected for analysis. The present study included 4317 individuals (3146 men and 1171 women). We investigated cases in which abnormal opacity was detected on CR and/or LDCT.ResultsA total of 47 and 124 cases had abnormal opacity on CR and LDCT, respectively. Among these, 41 cases in which the abnormal opacity was identified by both methods contained 20 treated cases. Six cases had abnormalities only on CR, and none of the cases required further treatment. Eighty-three cases were identified using LDCT alone. Of these, many cases, especially those over the age of 50 years, were diagnosed with thoracic tumors and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which required early treatment. In contrast, many cases of pulmonary infections have improved spontaneously, without any treatment.ConclusionThese results revealed that LDCT allowed early detection of thoracic tumors and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, especially in individuals over the age of 50 years. CR is still a useful imaging modality for other thoracic diseases, especially in individuals under the age of 49 years.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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