Prevalence and Malignant Involvement of Calcified Intrathoracic Lymph Nodes in Patients Undergoing Endosonography

The presence of calcifications, which is a relatively common feature in intrathoracic lymph nodes, typically contributes to confer them a heterogeneous aspect during endosonographic B-mode examination, but their prevalence and a possible association between calcifications and metastatic involvement has never been systematically evaluated. We hypothesize that, in patients undergoing mediastinal diagnosis or staging of suspected/known lung cancer/intrathoracic malignancies, the prevalence of lymph node metastases is similar in calcified and non-calcified lymph nodes.