Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38007471›Full record

ArticleBiomedical engineering online2023

Spatial mapping of tumor heterogeneity in whole-body PET-CT: a feasibility study.

Hanna Jönsson, Håkan Ahlström, Joel Kullberg

Abstract read
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Article in Biomedical engineering online, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Prognostic value and diagnostic performance of nectin-4-targeted [European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging · 2026
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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Hanna JönssonSection of Radiology, Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University, 751 85, Uppsala, Sweden. hanna.jonsson@surgsci.uu.se.
Håkan AhlströmSection of Radiology, Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University, 751 85, Uppsala, Sweden.
Joel KullbergSection of Radiology, Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University, 751 85, Uppsala, Sweden.

Funding

Cancerfonden 20 1303PjF (HA)
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundTumor heterogeneity is recognized as a predictor of treatment response and patient outcome. Quantification of tumor heterogeneity across all scales may therefore provide critical insight that ultimately improves cancer management.

methodsAn image registration-based framework for the study of tumor heterogeneity in whole-body images was evaluated on a dataset of 490 FDG-PET-CT images of lung cancer, lymphoma, and melanoma patients. Voxel-, lesion- and subject-level features were extracted from the subjects' segmented lesion masks and mapped to female and male template spaces for voxel-wise analysis. Resulting lesion feature maps of the three subsets of cancer patients were studied visually and quantitatively. Lesion volumes and lesion distances in subject spaces were compared with resulting properties in template space. The strength of the association between subject and template space for these properties was evaluated with Pearson's correlation coefficient.

resultsSpatial heterogeneity in terms of lesion frequency distribution in the body, metabolic activity, and lesion volume was seen between the three subsets of cancer patients. Lesion feature maps showed anatomical locations with low versus high mean feature value among lesions sampled in space and also highlighted sites with high variation between lesions in each cancer subset. Spatial properties of the lesion masks in subject space correlated strongly with the same properties measured in template space (lesion volume, R = 0.986, p < 0.001; total metabolic volume, R = 0.988, p < 0.001; maximum within-patient lesion distance, R = 0.997, p < 0.001). Lesion volume and total metabolic volume increased on average from subject to template space (lesion volume, 3.1 ± 52 ml; total metabolic volume, 53.9 ± 229 ml). Pair-wise lesion distance decreased on average by 0.1 ± 1.6 cm and maximum within-patient lesion distance increased on average by 0.5 ± 2.1 cm from subject to template space.

conclusionsSpatial tumor heterogeneity between subsets of interest in cancer cohorts can successfully be explored in whole-body PET-CT images within the proposed framework. Whole-body studies are, however, especially prone to suffer from regional variation in lesion frequency, and thus statistical power, due to the non-uniform distribution of lesions across a large field of view.

Indexed as

Lung NeoplasmsPositron Emission Tomography Computed TomographyFeasibility StudiesFemaleFluorodeoxyglucose F18HumansMalePositron-Emission TomographyFluorodeoxyglucose F18Tumor distributionTumor heterogeneityVoxel-wise analysisWhole-body PET–CT

Identifiers

PMID38007471
PMCPMC10675915

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.