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Haralick’s texture features for the prediction of response to therapy in colorectal cancer: a preliminary study

  • ABDOMINAL RADIOLOGY
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Abstract

Purpose

Haralick features Texture analysis is a recent oncologic imaging biomarker used to assess quantitatively the heterogeneity within a tumor. The aim of this study is to evaluate which Haralick’s features are the most feasible in predicting tumor response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in colorectal cancer.

Materials and Methods

After MRI and histological assessment, eight patients were enrolled and divided into two groups based on response to neoadjuvant CRT in complete responders (CR) and non-responders (NR). Oblique Axial T2-weighted MRI sequences before CRT were analyzed by two radiologists in consensus drawing a ROI around the tumor. 14 over 192 Haralick’s features were extrapolated from normalized gray-level co-occurrence matrix in four different directions. A dedicated statistical analysis was performed to evaluate distribution of the extracted Haralick’s features computing mean and standard deviation.

Results

Pretreatment MRI examination showed significant value (p < 0.05) of 5 over 14 computed Haralick texture. In particular, the significant features are the following: concerning energy, contrast, correlation, entropy and inverse difference moment.

Conclusions

Five Haralick’s features showed significant relevance in the prediction of response to therapy in colorectal cancer and might be used as additional imaging biomarker in the oncologic management of colorectal patients.

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Acknowledgments

This study is funded by AIRC (Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro) Investigator Grant 2013/14129.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiological Sciences, Oncology and Pathology, “Sapienza” - University of Rome, I.C.O.T. Hospital, Via Franco Faggiana 1668, 04100, Latina, Italy

    Damiano Caruso, Marta Zerunian, Maria Ciolina, Domenico de Santis, Marco Rengo & Andrea Laghi

  2. Department of Engineering, University of Roma Tre, Via Vito Volterra 62, 00146, Rome, Italy

    Mumtaz H. Soomro, Gaetano Giunta, Silvia Conforto & Maurizio Schmid

  3. Department of Radiological Sciences, AOUP, Via Savi 10, 56126, Pisa, Italy

    Emanuele Neri

Authors
  1. Damiano Caruso
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Correspondence to Andrea Laghi.

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The Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards

All human and animal studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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All patients gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

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Caruso, D., Zerunian, M., Ciolina, M. et al. Haralick’s texture features for the prediction of response to therapy in colorectal cancer: a preliminary study. Radiol med 123, 161–167 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-017-0833-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-017-0833-8

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