検診肺癌見落としの2訴訟例―骨減弱処理と経時差分処理の有用性

Retrospective lung cancer detection on chest radiographs in medical checkups in two legal cases：usefulness of bone suppression and temporal subtraction

一般財団法人Autopsy imaging（Ai）情報センター^1）は，死後画像に関する画像鑑定業務を行う第三者機関として2009年に設立された。現在は生体画像も鑑定しており，それらは検診胸部単純X線上の肺癌見落とし訴訟例（検診受診者と/またはその遺族からの「もっと早い時期に肺癌が指摘されていれば，手術を受けることができた」という訴え）を少なからず含んでいる。

We retrospectively evaluated the timing of lung cancer detectability in two legal cases, supposing if bone suppression（BS）and temporal subtraction（TS）techniques were used for chest radiographs in health checkup, to assess whether the cancer had been previously overlooked, using DICOM image data for 3 consecutive years. Our study indicated lung cancer of one case could have been detected more than one year prior, and one case could have been detected some months prior. X-ray image-based health examinations in combination with BS and TS functions should help clinicians detect lung cancer earlier, facilitating lung cancer screening examinations.