A rib abnormality mimicking pulmonary nodule: a pitfall in the plain chest x-ray

Abstract

The ribs show a wide range of normal and pathologic radiographic appearences as well as congenital variations. Intrathoracic ribs are isolated and rare anomalies. They are usually super-numerary, more often right-sided, and involve the middle part of the thorax. We describe a case with intrathorasic rib abnormality mimicking a peripheral metastatic lung nodule in the plain chest x-ray and emphasize the use of coronal and sagittal reformatted images in thorasic imaging. Utilisation of multiplanar reformatted images in chest computerised tomography increase diagnostic quality.

Keywords

• Rib abnormality
• intrathoracic rib
• pulmonary nodule.