La Radiologia medica
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La Radiologia medica · Jun 2016
Added value of lung window in detecting drug mules on non-contrast abdominal computed tomography.
We evaluated the added value of lung window in non-contrast computed tomography (CT) of suspected body packers or stuffers. Forty suspected drug mules who were referred to our tertiary toxicology center were included. The final diagnosis of drug mule was based on the detection of packs in stool examination or surgery. ⋯ In the body packers group, the diagnostic performance of both abdominal windows scans and combined abdominal and lung windows scans were 100 %. In the body stuffers group, the sensitivity, NPV, and diagnostic accuracy of scans increased from 47.6, 52.1, and 55.0 to 52.3, 54.5, and 57.5 %, respectively, after the addition of lung windows. Reviewing the lung window on non-contrast abdominal CT can be helpful in detection of drug mules.