Double Or Nothing: Old Chest X-Ray As A Clue To Lung Mass

Mucoepidermoid carcinoma is a young person's lung cancer with no apparent causal connection to smoking. It exhibits slow growth, which can make it challenging to detect changes in size on serial chest imaging. Another way of describing its growth pattern is that mucoepidermoid carcinoma has an unusually long volume doubling time. We describe a case of an incidental lung nodule diagnosed as mucoepidermoid carcinoma in which a prior chest radiograph provided a clue to the indolent nature of the abnormality and therefore argued against typical lung cancer. In the same context, we underscore the value of volumetric analysis in improving the accuracy of nodule growth determinations, which further strengthens the argument that the importance of locating prior imaging has not diminished in contemporary pulmonary practice.