Texture analysis of apparent diffusion coefficient maps for treatment response assessment in prostate cancer bone metastases-A pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whole-lesion volumetric texture analysis of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps for assessing treatment response in prostate cancer bone metastases.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Texture analysis is performed in 12 treatment-naïve patients with 34 metastases before treatment and at one, two, and three months after the initiation of androgen deprivation therapy. Four first-order and 19 second-order statistical texture features are computed on the ADC maps in each lesion at every time point. Repeatability, inter-patient variability, and changes in the feature values under therapy are investigated. Spearman rank's correlation coefficients are calculated across time to demonstrate the relationship between the texture features and the serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels.

RESULTS: With few exceptions, the texture features exhibited moderate to high precision. At the same time, Friedman's tests revealed that all first-order and second-order statistical texture features changed significantly in response to therapy. Thereby, the majority of texture features showed significant changes in their values at all post-treatment time points relative to baseline. Bivariate analysis detected significant correlations between the great majority of texture features and the serum PSA levels. Thereby, three first-order and six second-order statistical features showed strong correlations with the serum PSA levels across time.

CONCLUSION: The findings in the present work indicate that whole-tumor volumetric texture analysis may be utilized for response assessment in prostate cancer bone metastases. The approach may be used as a complementary measure for treatment monitoring in conjunction with averaged ADC values.