Algorithms applied to spatially registered multi-parametric MRI for prostate tumor volume measurement

Prostate tumor volume correlates with critical components of cancer staging such as Gleason score (GS) grade, predicted disease progression, and metastasis. Therefore, non-invasive tumor volume measurement may elevate clinical management. Radiology assessments of multi-parametric MRI (MP-MRI) commonly visually examine individual images to determine possible tumor presence. This study combines registered MP-MRI into a single image that display normal tissue and possible lesions. This study tests and exploits the vector nature of spatially registered MP-MRI by using supervised target detection algorithms (STDA) and color display and psychovisual analysis (CIELAB) to non-invasively estimate prostate tumor volume.

MRI, including T1, T2, diffusion [apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC)], dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) images, were resampled, rescaled, translated, and stitched to form spatially registered Multi-parametric cubes. The multi-parametric or multi-spectral signatures (7-component or T1, T2, ADC, etc.) that characterize the prostate tumors were inserted into target detection algorithms with conical decision surfaces (adaptive cosine estimator, ACE). Various detection thresholds were applied to discriminate tumor from normal tissue. In addition, tumor appeared as yellow in color images that were created by assigning red to washout from DCE, green to high B from diffusion, and blue to autonomous diffusion image. The yellow voxels in the three-channel hypercube were visually identified by a reader and recording voxels that exceed a threshold in the b* component of the CIELAB algorithm. The number of reported tumor voxels were converted to volume based on spatial resolution and slice separation. The tumor volume measurements were quantitatively validated by comparing the tumor volume computations to the pathologist's assessment of the histology of sectioned whole mount prostates from 26 consecutive patients with prostate adenocarcinoma who underwent radical prostatectomy. This study analyzed tumors exceeding 1 cc and that also took up contrast material (18 patients).

High correlation coefficients for tumor volume measurements using supervised target detection and color analysis vs. histology from wholemount prostatectomy were computed (R=0.83 and 0.91, respectively). A linear fit for tumor volume measurements using for supervised target detection and color analysis vs. tumor measurements from radical prostatectomy (after correcting for shrinkage from the radical prostatectomy) results in a slope of 1.02 and 3.02, respectively. A polynomial fit for the color analysis to the histology found (R=0.95). Voxels exceeding a threshold in the b* part of the CIELAB algorithm yielded correlation coefficients (0.71, 0.80) offsets (0.01 cc, -0.63 cc) and slopes (1.99, 0.89) against the wholemount prostatectomy and color analysis, respectively.

Supervised target detection and color display and analysis applied to registered MP-MRI non-invasively estimates prostate tumor volumes >1 cc and displaying angiogenesis.