Abstract
Background. Small-cell lung cancer is usually centrally located and grows rapidly, often metastasizing to the lymph nodes and other organs. Case. An 82-year-old male received chemoradiotherapy for laryngeal cancer. Five years after treatment, follow-up chest CT revealed a number of small areas of nodular opacity (maximum size: 0.5 cm) clustered at the periphery of the middle lobe of the right lung. Since inflammatory changes were suspected, periodic CT examinations were performed. However, the lung nodules slowly grew, and a year and a half later, all of the nodules were found to have consolidated into one large nodule measuring 2.4 cm in size; therefore, malignancy was suspected. The pathological findings obtained using a CT-guided needle biopsy of the lungs led to a diagnosis of small-cell cancer. Brain MRI and FDG-PET scans revealed no clinical metastasis (clinical stage IA: T1bN0M0). The patient underwent video-assisted right middle lobectomy of the lungs and lymph node dissection, and a definitive diagnosis of pathological stage IA (T1aN0M0) disease was made. Conclusion. We herein reported a case of small-cell lung cancer with a peculiar progressive pattern.
