Intratumoral Heterogeneity of Breast Cancer Xenograft Models: Texture Analysis of Diffusion-Weighted MR Imaging

Abstract

ObjectiveTo investigate whether there is a relationship between texture analysis parameters of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps and histopathologic features of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 xenograft models.Materials and MethodsMCF-7 estradiol (+), MCF-7 estradiol (-), and MDA-MB-231 xenograft models were made with approval of the animal care committee. Twelve tumors of MCF-7 estradiol (+), 9 tumors of MCF-7 estradiol (-), and 6 tumors in MDA-MB-231 were included. Diffusion-weighted MR images were obtained on a 9.4-T system. An analysis of the first and second order texture analysis of ADC maps was performed. The texture analysis parameters and histopathologic features were compared among these groups by the analysis of variance test. Correlations between texture parameters and histopathologic features were analyzed. We also evaluated the intraobserver agreement in assessing the texture parameters.ResultsMCF-7 estradiol (+) showed a higher standard deviation, maximum, skewness, and kurtosis of ADC values than MCF-7 estradiol (-) and MDA-MB-231 (p < 0.01 for all). The contrast of the MCF-7 groups was higher than that of the MDA-MB-231 (p = 0.004). The correlation (COR) of the texture analysis of MCF-7 groups was lower than that of MDA-MB-231 (p < 0.001). The histopathologic analysis showed that Ki-67mean and Ki-67diff of MCF-7 estradiol (+) were higher than that of MCF-7 estradiol (-) or MDA-MB-231 (p < 0.05). The microvessel density (MVD)mean and MVDdiff of MDA-MB-231 were higher than those of MCF-7 groups (p < 0.001). A diffuse-multifocal necrosis was more frequently found in MDA-MB-231 (p < 0.001). The proportion of necrosis moderately correlated with the contrast (r = -0.438, p = 0.022) and strongly with COR (r = 0.540, p = 0.004). Standard deviation (r = 0.622, r = 0.437), skewness (r = 0.404, r = 0.484), and kurtosis (r = 0.408, r = 0.452) correlated with Ki-67mean and Ki-67diff (p < 0.05 for all). COR moderately correlated with Ki-67diff (r = -0.388, p = 0.045). Skewness (r = -0.643, r = -0.464), kurtosis (r = -0.581, r = -0.389), contrast (r = -0.473, r = -0.549) and COR (r = 0.588, r = 0.580) correlated with MVDmean and MVDdiff (p < 0.05 for all).ConclusionThe texture analysis of ADC maps may help to determine the intratumoral spatial heterogeneity of necrosis patterns, amount of cellular proliferation and the vascularity in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 xenograft breast cancer models.

Texture features on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging: new potential biomarkers for prostate cancer aggressiveness

“…In fact, textural features may potentially quantify texture changes due to histological alterations present in some illness (Castellano et al 2004). Texture, defined as a measure of spatial variations of the SI in an image, has been studied in medical image analysis to quantify image properties such as homogeneity (Chen et al 2007), to correlate with specific histopathologic features (Yun et al 2014), and to evaluate tumor heterogeneity (Herlidou-Même et al 2003). The texture analysis method based on gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) (Haralick et al 1973) has gained wide applications in medical image analysis (Chan et al 1995, Li et al 2005, Gibbs and Turnbull 2003, Freeborough and Fox 1998, Antel et al 2003, Mahmoud-Ghoneim et al 2003 for its ability to characterize the spatial dependence of gray-levels using the second-order statistics.…”

Quantitative imaging of cancer in the postgenomic era: Radio(geno)mics, deep learning, and habitats

“…159,160 In preclinical studies, these data can be spatially coregistered with histology (eg, demonstrating an increase in ADC in the one-half of a prostate xenograft that received radiotherapy, which was associated with a decreased nuclear count and increase in extracellular space and nuclear size). 172 In this study, histogram-based measurements of ADC values, such as standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis, were found to be positively correlated with Ki-67 staining. 172 In this study, histogram-based measurements of ADC values, such as standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis, were found to be positively correlated with Ki-67 staining.…”

“…169 DWI-MRI scans of MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 xenografts were used to provide quantitative texture information regarding intratumoral heterogeneity by correlating parameters derived from ADC maps with histological features. 172 In this study, histogram-based measurements of ADC values, such as standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis, were found to be positively correlated with Ki-67 staining. Histologically defined microvessel density was found to be inversely correlated with ADC values.…”

Biomarkers from in vivo molecular imaging of breast cancer: pretreatment 18F-FDG PET predicts patient prognosis, and pretreatment DWI-MR predicts response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy

“…Furthermore, texture analysis has been applied to multi-parametric MR images in a very limited number of works and, to our knowledge, only in one work in BC, in a preclinical study [36]. …”