Discrimination between invasive pulmonary aspergillosis and pulmonary lymphoma using CT.

Objective: The purpose was to assess the characteristic CT features of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) and pulmonary lymphoma (PL) and to analyze the potential to distinguish the two entities using CT.

Methods: The CT images of 70 patients with either proven IPA (n = 35) or PL (n = 35) were evaluated retrospectively and independently by two radiologists (reader 1 [R1] and reader 2 [R2]), analyzing images for presence, number and characteristics of pulmonary nodules and masses, ground-glass opacities, consolidations and other interstitial changes.

Results: Interreader agreement was moderate (4/33 CT features), good (9/33) or excellent (20/33).