TexRAD related talks and presentations were very well received at the recently concluded European Congress of Radiology (ECR) – scientific assembly and annual meeting of the European Society of Radiology from the 4th March to 8th March 2015 at the Austria Center in Vienna, Austria. It was quite evident at the conference that texture analysis is growing in importance as tool for the assessment of heterogeneity within tumours and other non-tumour applications (fibrosis, neurological/psychiatric disorders, cardiology) and as a risk-stratification tool having diverse applications (prognosis, disease-severity/characterization of lesions, treatment response prediction and evaluation), and is potentially leading to be an important non-invasive clinical imaging tool for tomorrow.
Presentations on TexRAD covered quite a diverse range of areas to validate this as a novel imaging biomarker (detailed in the table below).
The talk on Wed 4 March demonstrated the biological-correlate for multiparametric PET-CT image quantification (which includes TexRAD CT-texture-analysis) in terms of immuno-histochemical analysis (hypoxia, angiogenesis, ALK expression) in lung cancer.
The talk on Fri 6 March demonstrated the treatment response-prediction and evaluation ability of TexRAD MR-T2 texture analysis in assessing neo-adjuvant chemo-radiotherapy better than MR perfusion and diffusion in rectal cancer.
The talk on Sunday 8 March demonstrated the prognostic-ability of pre-operative TexRAD CT texture analysis of liver metastases in patients with colorectal liver metastases post liver resection. This paper was further recommended by the ECR 2015 Congress President (Prof. Bernd Hamm) and published as a full-page article in ‘ECR today’ on Sunday March 8 bulletin (in the clinical corner section). The paper was also voted as the best paper in the scientific session (Liver CT and ultrasound: New Technique – Abdominal Viscera, Imaging methods) where it was presented amongst the other science presentations.
The E-poster demonstrated a novel robust radiomics-approach using breast cancer patient population as an example, where multiparametric PET-CT features showed strong associations with immuno-histochemistry and identified high-risk patients (having – high mortality-risk, high tumour grade, high expression of proliferation marker – mcm2, high proportion of estrogen receptor negative status).