The purpose of this study was to analyze the image heterogeneity of clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (ccRCC) by computer tomography texture analysis and to provide new objective quantitative imaging parameters for the pre-operative prediction of Fuhrman-grade ccRCC.
A retrospective analysis of 131 cases of ccRCCs was performed by manually depicting tumor areas. Then, histogram-based texture parameters were calculated. The texture-feature values between Fuhrman low- (Grade I-II) and high-grade (Grade III-IV) ccRCCs were compared by two independent sample t-tests (False Discovery Rate correction), and receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to evaluate the efficacy of using texture features to predict Fuhrman high- and low-grade ccRCCs.
There were no statistical differences for any texture parameters without filtering (p > 0.05). There was a statistically significant difference between the entropy (fine) of the corticomedullary phase and the entropy (fine and coarse) of the nephrographic phase after Laplace of Gaussian filtering. The area under the ROC of the entropy was between 0.74 and 0.83.
Computer tomography texture features can predict the Fuhrman grading of ccRCC pre-operatively, with entropy being the most important imaging marker for clinical application.
Cancer imaging : the official publication of the International Cancer Imaging Society. 2019 Feb 06*** epublish ***
Zhan Feng, Qijun Shen, Ying Li, Zhengyu Hu
Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of College of Medical Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310003, Zhejiang, China., Department of Radiology, Hangzhou First People's Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310003, China., Department of Radiology, Second People's Hospital of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, 310003, Zhejiang, China., Department of Radiology, Second People's Hospital of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, 310003, Zhejiang, China. .