Histogram analysis combined with morphological characteristics to discriminate adenocarcinoma in situ or minimally invasive adenocarcinoma from invasive adenocarcinoma appearing as pure ground-glass nodule.

•It is of great importance to predict the invasiveness of pure ground-glass nodules.•Morphological characteristics have been widely assessed but the results varied.•Histogram analysis is of great potential to evaluate the invasiveness.•Combine the two methods mentioned above achieved better predictive performance.