Correlation of CT imaging features and pathological entities of lung adenocarcinoma with ground glass opacity

Objective To evaluate CT imaging features and pathology of lung adenocarcinoma with two different types of pulmonary ground glass nodulespure GGN (pGGN) vs mixed GGN (mGGN). Methods CT findings, pathology results of 76 patients who proved focal ground nodules (pGGN 36 cases, mGGN 40 cases) in the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University were retrospectively analyzed. Differences in the shape, speculation, lobulation, border, air-bronchogram, pleural indentation, vascular convergence sign, size and pathology classification of the nodules were observed and compared. Results There were no statistically significant differences in air-bronchogram, size of nodules and minimally invasive adenocarcinoma (MIA) between pGGN and mGGN (P> 0.05). Round shape was more common in patients with pGGN than in those with mGGN (χ²=10.294, P< 0.05), and the margin of pGGN was smoother than that of mGGN (χ²=7.465, P< 0.05). The lobulation (χ²=38.551, P< 0.05), spiculation (χ²=24.945, P< 0.05), pleural indentation (χ²=24.282, P< 0.05), vascular convergence sign (χ²=38.393, P< 0.05) were more common in patients with mGGN than in those with pGGN. There were statistically significant differences in pathology classification between pGGN and mGGN (χ²=45.182, P< 0.05), and the pathology of pGGN were mainly benign lesions and PIL (91.67%, P< 0.05), the pathology of mGGN were mainly IAC (45%, P< 0.05). Conclusion The CT features of two types of pulmonary ground glass nodules are significantly different with benign lesions in pGGN and malignant lesions in mGGN.