NTOG
Nordic Thoracic Oncology Group
Nordic Nodule Pathway Sandbox · v3.0.0

Continuous risk, AUC, Euclidean grey-zone mapping, multicentre uncertainty, and pathway comparison

A standalone browser sandbox for working-group discussion. The synthetic cohort assumptions are editable and are not empirical Nordic registry estimates.

Single nodule inputs

Diameter and volume are linked as a sphere. Brock uses diameter. The growth component uses volume.

Single nodule output

CRS
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Brock 2013
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PanCan score, not Nordic-validated
Herder post-PET
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Computed only if PET entered
VDT band
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CRS action tier

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Position in cohort feature space

Run a cohort simulation to populate malignant and benign centroids.

Why this tier

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Cohort parameters

Advanced cohort settings

These defaults are plausible synthetic Nordic-mixed-cohort priors for sandbox discussion, not empirical Nordic registry data. Type probabilities are normalised internally if they do not sum to 1.

Edit class-conditional distributions
FeatureMalignantBenign
log10 volume mu
log10 volume SD
Type probabilities, solid / part-solid / GGO
Spiculation probability
Upper lobe probability
Nodule count Poisson lambda plus 1
Age mu / SD
Female probability
Emphysema probability
Family history probability
Pack-years Gamma shape / scale

ROC and AUC for CRS

Euclidean grey-zone summary

Multicentre centroid decomposition

Each patient is described by its Gaussian-kernel proximity to four clinical centroids (malignant, ordinary benign, inflammatory benign, no prior scan), giving a soft local-centroid mixture score. The aim is to make ambiguous cases more interpretable, not to create a validated classifier.

Boundary robustness under measurement noise

Each patient is perturbed using the configured volume CV. Prior and current volumes are both perturbed when a prior scan exists. Pathway decisions are then reclassified to estimate decision fragility.

Feature-space PCA scatter

Feature vector: z(log10 current volume), z(G(VDT)), and unnormalised Brock_P. Triangles mark no-prior-scan patients.

Distance-ratio histogram

r = distance to malignant centroid / (distance to malignant + distance to benign). r near 0.5 is the grey zone.

Built-in pathway controls

Custom pathway editor

No free-text code is executed. The rule is an OR-combination of validated numeric fields.

Pathway performance table

Expected total harm

Harm weights are explicit and subjective. They are intended for sensitivity discussion, not clinical valuation.

Threshold sensitivity sweep

Brock and CRS sweep their score thresholds. GrowCAT sweeps the upper VDT bound with the lower bound fixed. Hybrid sweeps its low Brock threshold.

Gap population — who is reclassified between two pathways

The gap population is the set of patients whose referral eligibility changes when one pathway replaces another. Two pathways can have similar AUC or sensitivity while moving different patients in or out of eligibility; this panel describes who those patients are.

Harm-weight sensitivity — is the lowest-harm pathway stable?

Because the harm weights are subjective, each weight is independently halved and doubled while the others stay fixed. If the lowest-total-harm pathway changes, the harm-based ranking depends on that weight.

Information axes — what does an orthogonal test add?

Imaging + clinical risk (CRS) has a discrimination ceiling. This panel asks what a genuinely orthogonal information axis would buy: a blood protein panel (4MP-like) or a deep-learning CT model (Sybil-like). Set each axis's standalone discrimination and how redundant it is with CRS, then see the gain for everyone versus only the contested grey zone. Educational simulation on the synthetic cohort, calibrated to published numbers (4MP AUROC ~0.74; Sybil ~0.86) — not real performance.

Protein panel (4MP-like)

Deep-learning CT (Sybil-like)

Discrimination ladder

Complementarity at the chosen specificity

Among true malignancies: who does each axis catch, and how many does a new axis catch that the others miss?

Guideline takeaway

Model assumptions and limitations
  • Brock-Nordic validation gap. The Brock 2013 PanCan score is used because it is a published continuous nodule model. It is not validated for Nordic populations and must not be treated as a Nordic clinical decision rule.
  • Synthetic cohort caveat. The cohort generator uses editable, class-conditional assumptions for guideline-planning experiments. It is not a registry emulator.
  • Inflammatory-spike model. Very rapid benign growth is explicitly simulated, and G(VDT) is non-monotonic so VDT below about 100 days is not automatically high risk.
  • Measurement-noise assumption. Volume uncertainty is modelled as lognormal CV-based noise applied to both prior and current volumes before observed VDT is calculated.
  • Harm-weight subjectivity. CT, PET, biopsy, false-positive biopsy, missed malignancy, and indeterminate penalties are explicit weights for comparison only.
  • Four-centroid mixture caveat. The local-centroid mixture is an exploratory interpretability aid for ambiguous cases. It is not a validated clinical classifier.