Abstract
Anthracosis around bronchioles is one of the macroscopic findings commonly found in smoker's lungs and may possibly be related for pre-emphysematous lesions. High-resolution CT(HRCT) and pathologic findings were compared using inflated and fixed lungs to clarify the findings of smoker's lungs. Fifteen cases, which had anthracosis macroscopically without obvious emphysematous lesions in postmortem or operated lungs, were investigated for correlative study. The macroscopic anthracosis on the surface of the sliced specimens corresponded to pigmented fibrosis around bronchioles and arteries pathologically, accompanied with slight dilatation of bronchioles in the most cases. These lesions on radiographs showed ill-defined micronodular opacities in the central portion of secondary lobules and HRCT images of the specimens showed centrilobular micronodular opacities and ground-glass opacities (n=13) and centrilobular branching opacity (n=4). We also demonstrated these findings on HRCT images of the smokers. HRCT may have the potential to detect fibrosis with anthracosis around bronchioles which may be pre-emphysematous lesions in the smoker's lungs.
