Research Progress in the Effect of Consolidation Tumor Ratio 
on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Early-stage Peripheral Lung Cancer

Abstract

Consolidation tumor ratio (CTR) is a hot issue in lung cancer imaging studies in recent years. It is defined as the proportion of the maximum consolidation diameter divided by the maximum tumor diameter in the lung window scanned by high resolution computed tomography (HRCT). Many studies have also confirmed that it can be used as an indicator to identify whether a lung tumor is benign or malignant at the early stage, the main basis on which to decide whether sublobectomy can be performed, and is an independent factor for the recurrence and prognosis of early-stage lung cancer. Especially after tumor size and CTR results of JCOG0804 and JCOG0802 trials in Japan were published, a breakthrough in the treatment method upends the conventional surgical approach, which benefits patients with early-stage lung cancer. But insufficient research data on CTR leads to the fact that an evaluation system to measure CTR is yet to be built. This paper discusses the research progress in CTR prediction of benign or malignancy of pulmonary nodules, how to choose a surgical approach, lymph node dissection, spread through air spaces (STAS) and other hot issues. It also investigates the possible indicators to predict efficacy based on CTR, summarizes and analyzes the development trend of surgical methods to treat early-stage peripheral lung cancer and challenges, to provide new ideas for clinical application.

Keywords

• pulmonary nodule; consolidation tumor ratio; diagnosis; treatment