Role of textural analysis of pretreatment ¹⁸F FDG PET/CT in response prediction in oesophageal carcinoma patients

PET/CT is routinely used for staging, response assessment and surveillance in oesophageal carcinoma patients. The aim of this study was to investigate whether textural features of pre-treatment ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT images can contribute to prognosis prediction in carcinoma oesophagus patients. This is a retrospective study of 30 diagnosed carcinoma oesophagus patients. These patients underwent pre-treatment ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT for staging. The images were processed in a commercially available textural analysis software. ROI was drawn over primary tumor with a 40% threshold and was processed further to derive 42 textural and radiomic parameters. These parameters were then compared between progression group and non-progression group. ROC curves were used to identify cut- off values for textural features with a p value <0.05 for statistical significance. A retrospective study of 30 primary carcinoma oesophagus patients was done. Patients were followed up after chemo-radiotherapy and they underwent follow up PET/ CT. On the basis of their response, patients were divided into progression group and non-progression group. Among them, 15 patients showed disease progression and 15 patients were in non- progression group. 10 textural analysis parameters turned out to be significant in prediction of disease progression. Cut off values were calculated for these parameters according to the ROC curves.