Abstract: The purpose of this paper was to analyze the difference between the multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) chest plain and contrast-enhanced scans in judging the nature of pulmonary nodules. The clinical data and MSCT chest plain scan and MSCT enhanced scan images of 125 patients with pulmonary nodules were retrospectively analyzed, and the pulmonary nodule images under MSCT plain scan and MSCT enhanced scan were analyzed. The results showed that the display rate of lobulation sign, pleural stretch sign, vascular bundle sign and vacuole sign under enhanced scan was significantly higher than that of MSCT plain scan (P<0.05). The enhanced CT value and CT value increment of benign nodular lesions [(56.84±11.36) Hu and (25.67±13.65) Hu, respectively] were lower than those of malignant nodular lesions [(79.52±12.32) Hu and (48.95±12.35) Hu, respectively, P<0.05]. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of MSCT plain scan were 65.96%, 67.95% and 67.20%, respectively. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of MSCT enhanced scan were 80.85%, 80.77% and 80.80%, MSCT enhanced scan was closer to pathological results. Both plain MSCT scan and MSCT enhanced scan have good clinical value in judging the nature of pulmonary nodules, but MSCT enhanced scan has more prominent diagnostic value for the nature of pulmonary nodules.

Key words: multi-slice spiral CT plain scan, multi-slice spiral CT enhanced scan, pulmonary nodules