Comparison between Two Different Scanners for the Evaluation of the Role of 18F-FDG PET/CT Semiquantitative Parameters and Radiomics Features in the Prediction of Final Diagnosis of Thyroid Incidentalomas

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare two different tomographs for the evaluation of the role of semiquantitative PET/CT parameters and radiomics features (RF) in the prediction of thyroid incidentalomas (TIs) at 18F-FDG imaging. A total of 221 patients with the presence of TIs were retrospectively included. After volumetric segmentation of each TI, semiquantitative parameters and RF were extracted. All of the features were tested for significant differences between the two PET scanners. The performances of all of the features in predicting the nature of TIs were analyzed by testing three classes of final logistic regression predictive models, one for each tomograph and one with both scanners together. Some RF resulted significantly different between the two scanners. PET/CT semiquantitative parameters were not able to predict the final diagnosis of TIs while GLCM-related RF (in particular GLCM entropy_log2 e GLCM entropy_log10) together with some GLRLM-related and GLZLM-related features presented the best predictive performances. In particular, GLCM entropy_log2, GLCM entropy_log10, GLZLM SZHGE, GLRLM HGRE and GLRLM HGZE resulted the RF with best performances. Our study enabled the selection of some RF able to predict the final nature of TIs discovered at 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging. Classic semiquantitative and volumetric PET/CT parameters did not reveal these abilities. Furthermore, a good overlap in the extraction of RF between the two scanners was underlined.

Emerging Role of FAPI PET Imaging for the Assessment of Benign Bone and Joint Diseases

“…The most common tracer used to perform such a diagnostic procedure is 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose ([ 18 F]FDG), which has the ability to reveal hypermetabolic lesions based on their increased glycolytic metabolism. As a consequence, [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT has proven its role to assess neoplastic disease both in staging and restaging settings [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. However, its usefulness for the evaluation of inflammatory and infectious diseases has also emerged, in particular in the last decade [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].…”

Effect of Matrix Size Reduction on Textural Information in Clinical Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…A higher feature reproducibility was observed for polystyrene phantom images but for different MR scanners (the obtained reproducibility was over 92% for the investigated 1.5T devices and ~80% for 3T scanners in terms of intraclass and concordance correlation coefficients) [26]. Of interest is that reproducibility of some texture parameters between two different scanners was also confirmed in [27], where predictive values of such features were investigated to discriminate benign and malignant thyroid incidentalomas in PET/CT imaging. The repeatability and reproducibility of radiomic features in MR imaging (MRI), including the derived texture, have been the objectives of many studies; these studies were mostly performed on phantoms.…”

Can Persistent Homology Features Capture More Intrinsic Information about Tumors from 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Images of Head and Neck Cancer Patients?

“…Third, variations in imaging protocols were not investigated. Since inter-scanner variability (time resolution, detector sensitivity correction, dead time correction, random and scatter coincidence corrections, attenuation correction, and image reconstruction) has been reported to affect conventional features extracted from CT [ 39 , 40 ] and PET images [ 41 , 42 ], the impact of these factors on PH features will be further examined in our future studies. Streak artifacts, which can decrease the performance of radiomic models [ 43 ], were not examined in this study.…”