Background: Retroperitoneum is one of the largest spaces in the body where the primary and metastatic tumors grow silently to large sizes before the clinical signs and symptoms appear. Though retroperitoneal masses are rare with reported incidence of 0.3% to 3.0%, majority of them are malignant. Early and accurate diagnosis is crucial. Of the many diagnostic modalities, radiological investigation such as computed tomography (CT) is the modality of choice for the primary evaluation.
Objective: To evaluate the usefulness of CT scan in evaluation of the retroperitoneal masses.
Materials and Methods: Total 30 cases of retroperitoneal mass were studied by CT scan using oral and intravenous contrast in the Department of Radiodiagnosis and Imaging, Government Medical College and New Civil Hospital, Surat, Gujarat, India, from July 2010 to July 2013.
Result: Of the 30 cases, 17 were male and 13 were female patients. A total of 63.3% of the lesions were malignant and 36.6% of the lesions were benign. Retroperitoneal lymphoid masses were the most common.
Conclusion: CT scan is safe, simple, minimally invasive, and a cost-effective method in the diagnosis of primary retroperitoneal masses. It is highly effective in determining the exact location, extension, metastatic lymphadenopathy, vascular invasion, and distant metastases with fair accuracy. It is a vital guide in the procedures such as guided FNAC and biopsy. It provides important clues for the final diagnosis. Thus, CT is the modality of choice in the evaluation of retroperitoneal masses. However, differentiating the malignant lesions and metastatic lymph nodes from each other is difficult on CT features alone.
Key words: Retroperitoneal masses, CT scan, primary, evaluation
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