Objective:

To determine the value of low dose CT (LDCT) in the preoperative staging of solitary subsolid nodular lung adenocarcinoma.

Methods:

A total of 53 patients [19 male and 34 female; mean age of 55 years

]

with solitary subsolid nodular lung adenocarcinoma who underwent LDCT before surgery or needle biopsy were included. The CT findings were assessed in terms of nodule size

density and relationship with pleura. Kappa test was used to analyze the consistency between CT-TNM and p-TNM or staging diagnosis of subsolid nodular lung adenocarcinoma between different radiologists. Lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis diagnosed by LDCT were compared with histopathological findings.

Results:

The accuracy of LDCT in T staging and N staging of subsolid nodular lung adenocarcinoma was 88.7% (47/53) and 94.3% (50/53)

respectively. There was a good consistency between CT-TNM and p-TNM or different radiologists (Kappa=0.803

0.733;

P

0.05).

Conclusion:

LDCT has clear advantages in the image staging of solitary subsolid lung adenocarcinoma because of the low incidences of lymph node metastasis and distant organ metastasis.