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Incidental findings during cardiac assessment; a suggested algorithm for countries endemic with tuberculosis.

Muhammad Amin Ibrahim*, Aimie Razali, Adli Azam Mohammad Razi, Mohammed Fauzi Abdul Rani

Lung nodules are the commonest incidental findings during cardiac imaging. Majority of these cases were benign, but small numbers have potential malignant risk. These lead to cascade effect of unnecessary investigations especially in scarcity of specific follow-up recommendations. Furthermore, in Asian countries, these lung nodules would also represent in tuberculosis infection. In this review, we describe the approach and proposed algorithm for incidental lung nodules during cardiac assessment in countries endemic with tuberculosis. Assessment of these lung nodules should be performed using full field of view images and the malignant probability should be stratified based on clinical and radiological risk factors. In countries endemic with tuberculosis infections, the differentials for lung nodules should include infections namely Mycobacterium tuberculosis.