Solid component ratio influences prognosis of GGO-featured IA stage invasive lung adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND: The computed tomography (CT) characteristic of ground glass opacity (GGO) were shown to be associated with clinical significance in lung adenocarcinoma. We evaluated the prognostic value of the solid component ratio of GGO IA invasive lung adenocarcinoma. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the records of GGO IA patients who received surgical resection from April 2012 to December 2015. The solid component ratio was calculated based on thin-slice CT scans. Baseline features were compared stratified by the ratio. Cox proportional hazard models and survival analyses were adopted to explore potential prognostic value regarding overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). RESULTS: Four hundred fifteen patients were included. The higher ratio was significantly associated with larger tumor diameter, pathological subtypes and choice of surgical type. There was a significantly worse DFS with a > 50% ratio. The subgroups of 0% and ≤ 50% ratio showed close survival curves of DFS. Similar trends were observed in OS. Multivariate analyses revealed that the ratio was a significant predictor for DFS, but not for OS. No significant prognostic difference was observed between lobectomy and limited resections. CONCLUSION: A higher solid component ratio may help to predict a significantly worse prognosis of GGO IA lung adenocarcinoma. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40644-020-00363-6.