Pulmonary tumor measurements from x-ray computed tomography in one, two, and three dimensions
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-1-2011
Journal
Academic Radiology
Volume
18
Issue
11
First Page
1391
Last Page
1402
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2011.07.010
Abstract
RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the accuracy and reproducibility of three-dimensional (3D) measurements of lung phantoms and patient tumors from x-ray computed tomography (CT) and compared these to one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) measurements.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: CT images of three spherical and three irregularly shaped tumor phantoms were evaluated by three observers who performed five repeated measurements. Additionally, three observers manually segmented 29 patient lung tumors five times each. Follow-up imaging was performed for 23 tumors and response criteria were compared. For a single subject, imaging was performed on nine occasions over 2 years to evaluate multidimensional tumor response. To evaluate measurement accuracy, we compared imaging measurements to ground truth using analysis of variance. For estimates of precision, intraobserver and interobserver coefficients of variation and intraclass correlations (ICC) were used. Linear regression and Pearson correlations were used to evaluate agreement and tumor response was descriptively compared.
RESULTS: For spherical shaped phantoms, all measurements were highly accurate, but for irregularly shaped phantoms, only 3D measurements were in high agreement with ground truth measurements. All phantom and patient measurements showed high intra- and interobserver reproducibility (ICC >0.900). Over a 2-year period for a single patient, there was disagreement between tumor response classifications based on 3D measurements and those generated using 1D and 2D measurements.
CONCLUSION: Tumor volume measurements were highly reproducible and accurate for irregular, spherical phantoms and patient tumors with nonuniform dimensions. Response classifications obtained from multidimensional measurements suggest that 3D measurements provide higher sensitivity to tumor response.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Notes
This is an author-accepted manuscript of an article initially published by Elsevier. Final published version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2011.07.010