ArticleJournal of radiation oncology2016
Quantitative assessment of target delineation variability for thymic cancers: Agreement evaluation of a prospective segmentation challenge.
Article in Journal of radiation oncology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Postoperative radiotherapy for thymic epithelial tumors: a narrative review.Mediastinum (Hong Kong, China) · 2024Review
- AnClinical and translational radiation oncology · 2019Article
- A dose based approach for evaluation of inter-observer variations in target delineation.Technical innovations & patient support in radiation oncologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesWe sought to quantitatively determine the inter-observer variability of expert radiotherapy target-volume delineation for thymic cancers, as part of a larger effort to develop an expert-consensus contouring atlas.
methodsA pilot dataset was created consisting of a standardized case presentation with pre- and post-operative DICOM CT image sets from a single patient with Masaoka-Koga Stage III thymoma. Expert thoracic radiation oncologists delineated tumor targets on the pre- and post-operative scans as they would for a definitive and adjuvant case, respectively. Respondents completed a survey including recommended dose prescription and target volume margins for definitive and post-operative scenarios. Inter-observer variability was analyzed quantitatively with Warfield's simultaneous truth, performance level estimation (STAPLE) algorithm and Dice similarity coefficient (DSC).
resultsSeven users completed contouring for definitive and adjuvant cases; of these, 5 completed online surveys. Segmentation performance was assessed, with high mean±SD STAPLE-estimated segmentation sensitivity for definitive case GTV and CTV at 0.77 and 0.80, respectively, and post-operative CTV sensitivity of 0.55; all volumes had specificity of ≥0.99. Inter-observer agreement was markedly higher for the definitive target volumes, with mean±SD DSC of 0.88±0.03 and 0.89±0.04 for GTV and CTV respectively, compared to post-op CTV DSC of 0.69±0.06 (Kruskal-Wallis p<0.01.
conclusionExpert agreement for definitive case volumes was exceptionally high, though significantly lower agreement was noted post-operatively. Technique and dose prescription between experts was substantively consistent, and these preliminary results will be utilized to create an expert-consensus contouring atlas to aid the non-expert radiation oncologist in the planning of these challenging, rare tumors.
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