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Background: The number of incidental findings of pulmonary nodules using imaging methods to diagnose other thoracic or extrathoracic conditions has increased, suggesting the need for in-depth radiological image analyses to identify nodule type and avoid unnecessary invasive procedures., Objectives: The present study evaluated solid indeterminate nodules with a radiological stability suggesting benignity (SINRSBs) through a texture analysis of computed tomography (CT) images., Methods: A total of 100 chest CT scans were evaluated, including 50 cases of SINRSBs and 50 cases of malignant nodules. SINRSB CT scans were performed using the same noncontrast enhanced CT protocol and equipment; the malignant nodule data were acquired from several databases. The kurtosis (KUR) and skewness (SKW) values of these tests were determined for the whole volume of each nodule, and the histograms were classified into two basic patterns: peaks or plateaus., Results: The mean (MEN) KUR values of the SINRSBs and malignant nodules were 3.37 ± 3.88 and 5.88 ± 5.11, respectively. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that the sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing SINRSBs from malignant nodules were 65% and 66% for KUR values >6, respectively, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.709 ( p < 0.0001). The MEN SKW values of the SINRSBs and malignant nodules were 1.73 ± 0.94 and 2.07 ± 1.01, respectively. The ROC curve showed that the sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing malignant nodules from SINRSBs were 65% and 66% for SKW values >3.1, respectively, with an AUC of 0.709 ( p < 0.0001). An analysis of the peak and plateau histograms revealed sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy values of 84%, 74%, and 79%, respectively., Conclusions: KUR, SKW, and histogram shape can help to noninvasively diagnose SINRSBs but should not be used alone or without considering clinical data., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2019 Bruno Max Borguezan et al.)

Lung cancer is pointed as the major cause of death among patients with cancer throughout the world. This work is intended to develop a methodology for diagnosis of lung nodules using images from the Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative (LIDC-IDRI). The proposed methodology uses image processing and pattern recognition techniques. In order to differentiate between the patterns of malignant and benign nodules, we used phylogenetic diversity by means of particular indexes, that are: intensive quadratic entropy, extensive quadratic entropy, average taxonomic distinctness, total taxonomic distinctness, and pure diversity indexes. After that, we applied the genetic algorithm for selection of the best model. In the tests' stage, we applied the proposed methodology to 1405 (394 malignant and 1011 benign) nodules. The proposed work presents promising results at the classification into malignant and benign, achieving accuracy of 92.52%, sensitivity of 93.1% and specificity of 92.26%. The results demonstrated a good rate of correct detections using texture features. Since a precocious detection allows a faster therapeutic intervention, thus a more favorable prognostic to the patient, we propose herein a methodology that contributes to the area in this aspect.

Lung cancer is the major cause of death among patients with cancer worldwide. This work is intended to develop a methodology for the diagnosis of lung nodules using images from the Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative (LIDC-IDRI). The proposed methodology uses image processing and pattern recognition techniques. To differentiate the patterns of malignant and benign forms, we used a Minkowski functional, distance measures, representation of the vector of points measures, triangulation measures, and Feret diameters. Finally, we applied a genetic algorithm to select the best model and a support vector machine for classification. In the test stage, we applied the proposed methodology to 1405 (394 malignant and 1011 benign) nodules from the LIDC-IDRI database. The proposed methodology shows promising results for diagnosis of malignant and benign forms, achieving accuracy of 93.19 %, sensitivity of 92.75 %, and specificity of 93.33 %. The results are promising and demonstrate a good rate of correct detections using the shape features. Because early detection allows faster therapeutic intervention, and thus a more favorable prognosis for the patient, herein we propose a methodology that contributes to the area.

Using images from the Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative (LIDC-IDRI), we developed a methodology for classifying lung nodules. The proposed methodology uses image processing and pattern recognition techniques. To classify volumes of interest into nodules and non-nodules, we used shape measurements only, analyzing their shape using shape diagrams, proportion measurements, and a cylinder-based analysis. In addition, we use the support vector machine classifier. To test the proposed methodology, it was applied to 833 images from the LIDC-IDRI database, and cross-validation with k-fold, where [Formula: see text], was used to validate the results. The proposed methodology for the classification of nodules and non-nodules achieved a mean accuracy of 95.33 %. Lung cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer worldwide. Therefore, precocious detection allows for faster therapeutic intervention and a more favorable prognosis for the patient. Our proposed methodology contributes to the classification of lung nodules and should help in the diagnosis of lung cancer.

Objective: The present work has the objective of developing an automatic methodology for the detection of lung nodules., Methodology: The proposed methodology is based on image processing and pattern recognition techniques and can be summarized in three stages. In the first stage, the extraction and reconstruction of the pulmonary parenchyma is carried out and then enhanced to highlight its structures. In the second stage, nodule candidates are segmented. Finally, in the third stage, shape and texture features are extracted, selected and then classified using a support vector machine., Results: In the testing stage, with 140 new exams from the Lung Image Database Consortium image collection, 80% of which are for training and 20% are for testing, good results were achieved, as indicated by a sensitivity of 85.91%, a specificity of 97.70% and an accuracy of 97.55%, with a false positive rate of 1.82 per exam and 0.008 per slice and an area under the free response operating characteristic of 0.8062., Conclusion: Lung cancer presents the highest mortality rate in addition to one of the smallest survival rates after diagnosis. An early diagnosis considerably increases the survival chance of patients. The methodology proposed herein contributes to this diagnosis by being a useful tool for specialists who are attempting to detect nodules., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)