Differential diagnoses of cavitary lung lesions on computed tomography: a pictorial essay

Background Cavitary lung lesions are frequent findings on imaging, with the most common sources being malignancies and infections. They have multiple etiologies and differential diagnoses, which can have overlapping imaging characteristics, posing a diagnostic difficulty. Main body of the abstract This article is an educational pictorial essay highlighting the pitfalls and differential diagnoses of lung cavities, and focusing on the typical imaging patterns, the clinical and biological contexts of each etiology, illustrated by images that were extracted from the images archiving system of our radiology department. Short conclusion The radiologist should be aware of all etiologies of cavitary lung lesions, including the less frequent ones, and be familiar with their imaging patterns and characteristics, which aids in establishing the diagnosis or, at the very least, narrowing down the evoked diagnoses.