Value of CT vascular signs of lung ground-glass nodule in differential diagnosis of pathologic subtypes of lung adenocarcinoma

Objective To analyze the relationship and typing between ground-glass nodule(GGN)and peripheral blood vessels, and to explore its value in differential diagnosis of pathological classification of lung adenocarcinoma. Methods The clinical data of 92 patients with GGN(100 GGN)were analyzed retrospectively. They were divided into three groups, that were pre-invasion lesion group(n=48), microinvasive adenocarcinoma(MIA)group(n=30)and invasive adenocarcinoma(IAC)group(n=22). According to the relationship between GGN and peripheral blood, it can be divided into four types, that were type Ⅰ, type Ⅱ, type Ⅲ and type Ⅳ. Results In this study, the size of GGN was(7.99±3.18)mm in the pre-invasion lesion group,(8.75±2.87)mm in the MIA group and(13.47±4.48)mm in the IAC group. There were significant differences in GGN size between IAC group and pre-invasion lesion group as well as MIA group(P < 0.05). There were significant differences in peripheral vascular signs between every two groups(P < 0.01). The relationship between GGN with different proportion of ground glass components and vascular classification revealed that there were significant differences in typing of peripheral vascular signs between class A and class B, class A and class C, and class B and class C(P < 0.01). Conclusion The peripheral vascular- sign of GGN play an important role in the differential diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, and the accuracyof differential diagnosis can be further improved by combining the size of GGN and the proportion of ground-glass opacity contained in GGN.