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Updated: Jun 3, 2026
Multifractal Spectrum Analysis for Assessing Pulmonary Nodule Malignancy
Published on: January 10, 2025
A novel Doppler spectral index for differentiating benign from malignant lung tumors
Tsung-Ju Wu1, Judith Shu-Chu Shiao, Jau-Yeong Lu
1Division of Chest Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Min-Sheng Hospital, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. docdocwu@gmail.com
Purpose:
It has been reported that the resistance index (RI) and pulsatility index (PI) are of limited value in differentiating lung cancers from benign lesions. We hypothesized that a vascular work index (VWI), derived from Doppler spectral waveforms, would yield better results.
Methods:
Forty-one patients were enrolled, 20 of them having malignancies and 21 having benign lesions. The VWI was defined as the square of peak systolic velocity times the time-velocity integral. Maximal VWI, minimal RI, and minimal PI of each tumor were used for analysis.
Results:
Significantly higher VWI values were found in malignant tumors compared with benign lesions (p < 0.0001). VWI was shown by analysis of the receiver operating characteristic curve to be a best predictor of lung malignancies than PI and RI (p < 0.05), with a 0.89 (95% confidence interval, 0.80-0.98) area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.
Conclusions:
VWI may be a useful index to help differentiate malignant from benign lung tumors.
