Prediction Model for Lung Cancer in High-Risk Nodules Being Considered for Resection: Development and Validation in a Chinese Population

BACKGROUND: Determining benign and malignant nodules before surgery is very difficult when managing patients with pulmonary nodules, which further makes it difficult to choose an appropriate treatment. This study aimed to develop a lung cancer risk prediction model for predicting the nature of the nodule in patients’ lungs and deciding whether to perform a surgical intervention. METHODS: This retrospective study included patients with pulmonary nodules who underwent lobectomy or sublobectomy at Tianjin Medical University General Hospital between 2017 and 2020. All subjects were further divided into training and validation sets. Multivariable logistic regression models with backward selection based on the Akaike information criterion were used to identify independent predictors and develop prediction models. RESULTS: To build and validate the model, 503 and 260 malignant and benign nodules were used. Covariates predicting lung cancer in the current model included female sex, age, smoking history, nodule type (pure ground-glass and part-solid), nodule diameter, lobulation, margin (smooth, or spiculated), calcification, intranodular vascularity, pleural indentation, and carcinoembryonic antigen. The final model of this study showed excellent discrimination and calibration with a concordance index (C-index) of 0.914 (0.890–0.939). In an independent sample used for validation, the C-index for the current model was 0.876 (0.825–0.927) compared with 0.644 (0.559–0.728) and 0.681 (0.605–0.757) for the Mayo and Brock models. The decision curve analysis showed that the current model had higher discriminatory power for malignancy than the Mayo and the Brock models. CONCLUSIONS: The current model can be used in estimating the probability of lung cancer in nodules requiring surgical intervention. It may reduce unnecessary procedures for benign nodules and prompt diagnosis and treatment of malignant nodules.