Physiological imaging-defined, response-driven subvolumes of a tumor

Reza Farjam, Christina I. Tsien, Felix Y. Feng, Diana Gomez-Hassan, James A. Hayman, Theodore S. Lawrence, Yue Cao

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Purpose: To develop an image analysis framework to delineate the physiological imaging-defined subvolumes of a tumor in relating to treatment response and outcome. Methods and Materials: Our proposed approach delineates the subvolumes of a tumor based on its heterogeneous distributions of physiological imaging parameters. The method assigns each voxel a probabilistic membership function belonging to the physiological parameter classes defined in a sample of tumors, and then calculates the related subvolumes in each tumor. We applied our approach to regional cerebral blood volume (rCBV) and Gd-DTPA transfer constant (Ktrans) images of patients who had brain metastases and were treated by whole-brain radiation therapy (WBRT). A total of 45 lesions were included in the analysis. Changes in the rCBV (or K trans)-defined subvolumes of the tumors from pre-RT to 2 weeks after the start of WBRT (2W) were evaluated for differentiation of responsive, stable, and progressive tumors using the Mann-Whitney U test. Performance of the newly developed metrics for predicting tumor response to WBRT was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: The percentage decrease in the high-CBV-defined subvolumes of the tumors from pre-RT to 2W was significantly greater in the group of responsive tumors than in the group of stable and progressive tumors (P<.007). The change in the high-CBV-defined subvolumes of the tumors from pre-RT to 2W was a predictor for post-RT response significantly better than change in the gross tumor volume observed during the same time interval (P=.012), suggesting that the physiological change occurs before the volumetric change. Also, Ktrans did not add significant discriminatory information for assessing response with respect to rCBV. Conclusion: The physiological imaging-defined subvolumes of the tumors delineated by our method could be candidates for boost target, for which further development and evaluation is warranted.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1383-1390
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics
Volume85
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2013
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Radiation
  • Oncology
  • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
  • Cancer Research

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