A Retrospective Study of Mean Computed Tomography Value to Predict 
the Tumor Invasiveness in AAH and Clinical Stage Ia Lung Cancer

Abstract

Background and objective Recently, the detectable rate of ground-glass opacity (GGO ) was significantly increased, a appropriate diagnosis before clinic treatment tends to be important for patients with GGO lesions. The aim of this study is to validate the ability of the mean computed tomography (m-CT) value to predict tumor invasiveness, and compared with other measurements such as Max CT value, GGO size, solid size of GGO and C/T ratio (consolid/tumor ratio, C/T) to find out the best measurement to predict tumor invasiveness. Methods A retrospective study was conducted of 129 patients who recieved lobectomy and were pathological confirmed as atypical adenomatous pyperplasia (AAH) or clinical stage Ia lung cance in our center between January 2012 and December 2013. Of those 129 patients, the number of patients of AAH, AIS, AIS and invasive adenocarcinoma were 43, 26, 17 and 43, respectively. We defined AAH and AIS as noninvasive cancer (NC), MIA and invasive adenocarcinoma were categorized as invasive cancer(IC). We used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis to compare the ability to predict tumor invasiveness between m-CT value, consolidation/tumor ratio, tumor size and solid size of tumor. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the independent variables for prediction of pathologic more invasive lung cancer. Results 129 patients were enrolled in our study (59 male and 70 female), the patients were a median age of (62.0±8.6) years (range, 44 to 82 years). The two groups were similar in terms of age, sex, differentiation (P>0.05). ROC curve analysis was performed to determine the appropriate cutoff value and area under the cure (AUC). The cutoff value of solid tumor size, tumor size, C/T ratio, m-CT value and Max CT value were 9.4 mm, 15.3 mm, 47.5%, -469.0 HU and -35.0 HU, respectively. The AUC of those variate were 0.89, 0.79, 0.82, 0.90, 0.85, respectively. When compared the clinical and radiologic data between two groups, we found the IC group was strongly associated with a high m-CT value, high Max CT value, high C/T ratio and large tumor size. Gender, solid tumor size, tumor size, C/T ratio, m-CT value and MaxCT value were selected factor for multivariate analysis, when using the preoperatively determined variables to predict the tumor invasiveness, revealed that tumor size, C/T ratio, m-CT value and Max CT value were independent predictive factors of IC. Conclusion The musurements of Max CT value, GGO size, solid size of GGO and C/T ratio were significantly correlated with tumor invasiveness, and the evaluation of m-CT value is most useful musurement in predicting more invasive lung cancer.

Keywords

• Lung neoplams
• Tomography
• X-Ray computed
• ROC curve