• Jaeyoung Cho, Eun Sun Kim, Se Joong Kim, Yeon Joo Lee, Jong Sun Park, Young-Jae Cho, Ho Il Yoon, Jae Ho Lee, and Choon-Taek Lee.
• Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
• J Thorac Oncol. 2016 Sep 1; 11 (9): 1453-9.

IntroductionHow long persistent and stable ground-glass nodules (GGNs) should be followed is uncertain, although a minimum of 3 years is suggested. Here, we evaluated a group of GGNs that had remained stable for an initial period of 3 years with the aim of determining the proportion of GGNs showing subsequent growth after the initial 3 years and identifying the clinical and radiologic factors associated with subsequent growth.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed patients who underwent further computed tomography (CT) after the initial 3-year follow-up period showing a persistent and stable GGN (at least 5 years of follow-up from the initial CT).ResultsBetween May 2003 and June 2015, 453 GGNs (438 pure GGNs and 15 part-solid GGNs) were found in 218 patients. Of the 218 patients, 14 had 15 GGNs showing subsequent growth after the initial 3 years during the median follow-up period of 6.4 years. For the person-based analysis, the frequency of subsequent growth of GGNs that had been stable during the initial 3 years was 6.7% (14 of 218). For the nodule-based analysis, the frequency was 3.3% (15 of 453). In a multivariate analysis, age 65 years or older (OR = 5.51, p = 0.012), history of lung cancer (OR = 6.44, p = 0.006), initial size 8 mm or larger (OR = 5.74, p = 0.008), presence of a solid component (OR = 16.58, p = 0.009), and air bronchogram (OR = 5.83, p = 0.015) were independent risk factors for subsequent GGN growth.ConclusionsFor the individuals with GGNs having the aforementioned risk factors, the longer follow-up period is required to confirm subsequent GGN growth.Copyright © 2016 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

23 keywords...

hide…