ObjectiveTo explore the clinical utility and safety of electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy (ENB)-guided microwave ablation (MWA) in the patients with inoperable high-risk pulmonary nodules.MethodsClinical data of patients who were diagnosed with inoperable pulmonary nodules highly suspected as malignant tumors and treated with ENB-guided MWA in Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University from December 2019 to September 2020 were retrospectively collected and analyzed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the procedure. There were 6 males and 3 females aged 72.0 (59.5-77.0) years.ResultsTotally ENB-guided MWA was performed in 9 patients with 12 lesions. All patients suffered from at least one chronic comorbidity. The inoperable reasons included poor pulmonary function (55.6%), comorbidities of other organs which made the surgery intolerable (33.3%), multiple lesions in different lobes or segments (22.2%), personal wills (22.2%) and advanced in age (11.1%). The median diameter of nodules was 13.5 (9.5-22.0) mm and the median distance from the edge of nodules to pleura was 5.3 (1.8-16.3) mm. Bronchoscope maneuver to the targeted lesions was manipulated according to navigation pathway under visual and X-ray guidance and confirmed with radial ultrasound probe. Rapid on-site evaluation also helped with primary pathological confirmation of biopsy specimen. Among all the lesions, 4 adenocarcinoma, 1 non-small cell lung cancer-not otherwise specified and 2 inflammatory lesions were reported in postoperative pathological diagnosis, while no malignant cells were found in 5 specimens. The ablation success rate was 83.3% (10/12). For the two off-targeted lesions, percutaneous ablations were performed as salvage treatment subsequently. The median hospitalization time was 3.0 (2.0-3.0) days and no short-term complications were reported in these patients.ConclusionENB-guided MWA is a safe and effective procedure for patients with high-risk pulmonary nodules when thoracic surgery cannot be tolerated.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely used in all walks of life, including healthcare, and has shown great application value in the auxiliary diagnosis of pulmonary nodules in the medical field. In the face of a large amount of lung imaging data, clinicians use AI tools to identify lesions more quickly and accurately, improving work efficiency, but there are still many problems in this field, such as the high false positive rate of recognition, and the difficulty in identifying special types of nodules. Researchers and clinicians are actively developing and using AI tools to promote their continuous evolution and make them better serve human health. This article reviews the clinical application and research progress of AI-assisted diagnosis of pulmonary nodules.
Accurate segmentation of pulmonary nodules is an important basis for doctors to determine lung cancer. Aiming at the problem of incorrect segmentation of pulmonary nodules, especially the problem that it is difficult to separate adhesive pulmonary nodules connected with chest wall or blood vessels, an improved random walk method is proposed to segment difficult pulmonary nodules accurately in this paper. The innovation of this paper is to introduce geodesic distance to redefine the weights in random walk combining the coordinates of the nodes and seed points in the image with the space distance. The improved algorithm is used to achieve the accurate segmentation of pulmonary nodules. The computed tomography (CT) images of 17 patients with different types of pulmonary nodules were selected for segmentation experiments. The experimental results are compared with the traditional random walk method and those of several literatures. Experiments show that the proposed method has good accuracy in the segmentation of pulmonary nodule, and the accuracy can reach more than 88% with segmentation time is less than 4 seconds. The results could be used to assist doctors in the diagnosis of benign and malignant pulmonary nodules and improve clinical efficiency.
ObjectiveTo explore the clinical application of the comprehensive guidance technologies, such as cone beam computed tomography (CBCT), virtual bronchoscopic navigation (VBN), and superimposed high-frequency jet ventilator for respiratory control in the biopsy of peripheral pulmonary nodules (PPNs). MethodsThe clinical information of 3 patients with PPNs diagnosed by CBCT combined with VBN and superimposed high frequency superposition jet ventilator in Shanghai Changhai Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Results Clinical data of 3 patients were collected. The average diameter of PPNs was (25.3±0.3) mm with various locations in left and right lung. The first nodule was located in the apex of the left upper lung, and the biopsy was benign without malignant cells. The lesion was not enlarged during the 5-year follow-up. The second one was located in the left lingual lung, and the postoperative pathology was confirmed as mucosa-associated lymphoma. The third one was located in the anterior segment of the right upper lung. After the failure of endobronchial procedure, percutaneous PPNs biopsy under CBCT combined with VBN was performed, and the pathological diagnosis was confirmed as primary lung adenocarcinoma. Postoperative pneumothorax complication occurred in the third patient with right lung compression rate approximately 20%. ConclusionsThe application of CBCT, combined with VBN and the superimposed high frequency jet ventilator for respiratory control can potentially improve the accuracy and safety in the diagnosis of PPNs. Multi-center clinical trials are needed to verify its further clinical application.
ObjectiveTo systematically evaluate the application effect of CT-guided Hook-wire localization and CT-guided microcoil localization in pulmonary nodules surgery. MethodsThe literatures on the comparison between CT-guided Hook-wire localization and CT-guided microcoil localization for pulmonary nodules were searched in PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Wanfang, VIP and CNKI databases from the inception to October 2021. Review Manager (version 5.4) software was used for meta-analysis. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) was used to evaluate the quality of studies.ResultsA total of 10 retrospective cohort studies were included, with 1 117 patients including 473 patients in the CT-guided Hook-wire localization group and 644 patients in the CT-guided microcoil localization group. The quality of the studies was high with NOS scores>6 points. The result of meta-analysis showed that the difference in the localization operation time (MD=0.14, 95%CI ?3.43 to 3.71, P=0.940) between the two groups was not statistically significant. However, the localization success rate of the Hook-wire group was superior to the microcoil group (OR=0.35, 95%CI 0.17 to 0.72, P=0.005). In addition, in comparison with Hook-wire localization, the microcoil localization could reduce the dislocation rate (OR=4.33, 95%CI 2.07 to 9.08, P<0.001), the incidence of pneumothorax (OR=1.62, 95%CI 1.12 to 2.33, P=0.010) and pulmonary hemorrhage (OR=1.64, 95%CI 1.07 to 2.51, P=0.020). ConclusionAlthough Hook-wire localization is slightly better than microcoil localization in the aspect of the success rate of pulmonary nodule localization, microcoil localization has an obvious advantage compared with Hook-wire localization in terms of controlling the incidence of dislocation, pneumothorax and pulmonary hemorrhage. Therefore, from a comprehensive perspective, this study believes that CT-guided microcoil localization is a preoperative localization method worthy of further promotion.
Objective To explore the correlation between the imaging features of peripheral ground-glass pulmonary nodules and the invasion degree of lung adenocarcinoma, and the high risk factors for infiltrating lung adenocarcinoma under thin-slice CT, which provides some reference for clinicians to plan the surgical methods of pulmonary nodules before operation and to better communicate with patients, and assists in building a clinical predictive model for invasive adenocarcinoma. MethodsClinical data of the patients with peripheral ground-glass pulmonary nodules (diameter≤3 cm) in thin-slice chest CT in the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University from January 2019 to January 2020 were continuously collected. All patients underwent thin-slice CT scan and thoracoscopic surgery in our center. According to the pathological examination results, they were divided into two groups: an adenocarcinoma lesions before infiltration group, and an invasive lung adenocarcinoma group. The thin-slice CT imaging parameters of pulmonary nodules were collected. The nodular diameter, mean CT value, consolidation tumor ratio (CTR), nodular shape, vacuolar sign, bronchial air sign, lobulation sign, burr sign, lesion boundary, pleural depression sign, vascular cluster sign and other clinical data were collected. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to analyze the independent risk factors for the infiltrating lung adenocarcinoma, and to analyze the threshold value and efficacy of each factor for the identification of infiltrating lung adenocarcinoma. Results Finally 190 patients were enrolled. There were 110 patients in the adenocarcinoma lesions before infiltration group, including 21 males and 89 females with a mean age of 53.57±10.90 years, and 80 patients in the invasive lung adenocarcinoma group, including 31 males and 49 females with a mean age of 56.45±11.30 years. There was a statistical difference in the mean CT value, nodular diameter, CTR, gender, smoking, nodular type, nodular shape, vacuolar sign, lobulation sign, burr sign, lesion boundary, pleural depression sign, vascular cluster sign between the two groups (P＜0.05). However, there was no statistical difference between the two groups in age (P=0.081), lesion site (P=0.675), and bronchial air sign (P=0.051). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that nodular diameter, mean CT value, CTR and lobulation sign were independent risk factors for differentiating preinvasive adenocarcinoma from invasive adenocarcinoma. At the same time, the threshold value was calculated by Youden index, indicating that the CTR was 0.45, the nodal diameter was 10.5 mm and the mean CT value was –452 Hu. Conclusion In the peripheral ground-glass pulmonary nodules, according to the patient's CT imaging features, such as mixed ground-glass nodules, irregular shapes, vacuoles, short burrs, clear boundaries, pleural indentations, and vascular clusters, have a certain reference value in the discrimination of the invasion degree of ground-glass pulmonary nodules. At the same time, it is found in this research that peripheral ground-glass pulmonary nodules with diameter greater than 10.5 mm, CT value greater than –452 Hu, CTR greater than 0.45 and lobulation sign are more likely to be infiltrating lung adenocarcinoma.
The possibility of solitary pulmonary nodules tending to lung cancer is very high in the middle and late stage. In order to detect the middle and late solitary pulmonary nodules, we present a new computer-aided diagnosis method based on the geometric features. The new algorithm can overcome the disadvantage of the traditional algorithm which can't eliminate the interference of vascular cross section. The proposed algorithm was implemented by multiple clustering of the extracted geometric features of region of interest (ROI) through K-means algorithm, including degree of slenderness, similar degree of circle, degree of compactness and discrete degree. The 232 lung CT images were selected from Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) database to do contrast experiment. Compared with the traditional algorithm, the detection rate of the new algorithm was 92.3%, and the error rate was 14.8%. At the same time, the detection rate of the traditional algorithm was only 83.9%, and the error rate was 78.2%. The results show that the proposed algorithm can mark the solitary pulmonary nodules more accurately and reduce the error rate due to precluding the disturbance of vessel section.
ObjectiveTo summarize and analyze the clinical diagnosis, surgical treatment and prognosis of multiple pulmonary nodules (MPNs). Methods The clinical data of lung cancer patients who received surgical treatment in our hospital from 2018 to 2020 were collected. The short-term efficacy of surgical treatment for MPNs was analyzed. Results A total of 97 patients were enrolled, including 30 males and 67 females with an average age of 56.1±10.0 years at onset ill. There were 62 patients with double lesions, 22 patients with three lesions, 4 patients with four lesions, and 9 patients with more than four lesions. A total of 213 lesions were surgically treated, including 88 pure ground-glass nodules, 81 partially solid nodules, and 7 solid nodules. There were 87 simultaneous surgeries and 10 staged surgeries, with an average operation interval of 5.2 months. The pathological combination type included adenocarcinoma-adenocarcinoma in 96 (99.0%) patients, squamous cell carcinoma-squamous cell carcinoma in 1 (1.0%) patient, and no lymph node metastasis was found. The 2-year disease-free survival (DFS) rate was 92.1%, and the overall survival (OS) rate was 100.0%. Univariate analysis showed that high-risk lesion size>2 cm (P=0.316), residual lesions (P=0.782) and pathological combination type (P=0.913) had statistical effect on the 2-year DFS rate. Conclusion MPNs are mainly diagnosed with multiple primary lung cancers, and the pathological combination is mostly adenocarcinoma-adenocarcinoma combination. Imaging examination is of great help to the surgical approach selection, diagnosis and differential diagnosis of MPNs. During the operation, maximal preservation of lung function and complete resection of high-risk nodules should be taken as the principle, and the prognosis is satisfactory.
ObjectiveTo investigate the feasibility of using magnetic beads to locate small pulmonary nodules.MethodsTwelve rabbits were randomly divided into two groups, 6 in each group. One group underwent thoracotomy after anesthesia and the other group underwent percutaneous puncture under the guidance of X-ray. One and two cylindrical tracer magnets (magnetic beads) with a diameter of 1 mm and a height of 3 mm were injected adjacent to the imaginary pulmonary nodules in left lung in each group. The magnetic beads beside the imaginary nodules were attracted by a pursuit magnet with a diameter of 9 mm and a height of 19 mm. The effectiveness of localization by magnetic beads were determined by attraction between tracer and pursuit magnets.ResultsAll processes were uneven in 12 rabbits. There was micro hemorrhage and no hematoma in the lung tissue at the injection site of the magnetic beads. When tracked with the pursuit magnets, there was one bead divorce in cases that one bead was injected, but no migration or divorce of the magnetic beads in cases that two magnetic beads were simultaneously injected to localize the small pulmonary nodules.ConclusionThe feasibility of using magnetic beads to locate small pulmonary nodules has been preliminarily verified.
Increasing peripheral pulmonary nodules are detected given the growing adoption of chest CT screening for lung cancer. The invention of electromagnetic navigation bronchoscope provides a new diagnosis and treatment method for pulmonary nodules, which has been demonstrated to be feasible and safe, and the technique of microwave ablation through bronchus is gradually maturing. The one-stop diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary nodules can be completed by the combination of electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy and microwave ablation, which will help achieve local treatment through the natural cavity without trace.