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Pop CF, Veys I, Bormans A, Larsimont D, Liberale G. Fluorescence imaging for real-time detection of breast cancer tumors using IV injection of indocyanine green with non-conventional imaging: a systematic review of preclinical and clinical studies of perioperative imaging technologies. Breast Cancer Res Treat 2024; 204:429-442. [PMID: 38182824 PMCID: PMC10959791 DOI: 10.1007/s10549-023-07199-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2023] [Accepted: 11/22/2023] [Indexed: 01/07/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND This review summarizes the available data on the effectiveness of indocyanine green fluorescence imaging (ICG-FI) for real-time detection of breast cancer (BC) tumors with perioperative imaging technologies. METHODS PubMed and Scopus databases were exhaustively searched for publications on the use of the real-time ICG-FI evaluation of BC tumors with non-conventional breast imaging technologies. RESULTS Twenty-three studies were included in this review. ICG-FI has been used for BC tumor identification in 12 orthotopic animal tumor experiences, 4 studies on animal assessment, and for 7 human clinical applications. The BC tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) was 1.1-8.5 in orthotopic tumor models and 1.4-3.9 in animal experiences. The detection of primary human BC tumors varied from 40% to 100%. The mean TBR reported for human BC varied from 2.1 to 3.7. In two studies evaluating BC surgical margins, good sensitivity (93.3% and 100%) and specificity (60% and 96%) have been reported, with a negative predictive value of ICG-FI to predict margin involvement intraoperatively of 100% in one study. CONCLUSIONS The use of ICG-FI as a guiding tool for the real-time identification of BC tumors and for the assessment of tumor boundaries is promising. There is great variability between the studies with regard to timing and dose. Further evidence is needed to assess whether ICG-guided BC surgery may be implemented as a standard of care.
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Affiliation(s)
- C Florin Pop
- Department of Surgical Oncology, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Meylemeersch 90, 1070, Brussels, Belgium.
| | - Isabelle Veys
- Department of Surgical Oncology, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Meylemeersch 90, 1070, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Anne Bormans
- Institutional Library, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Denis Larsimont
- Department of Pathology, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Gabriel Liberale
- Department of Surgical Oncology, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Meylemeersch 90, 1070, Brussels, Belgium
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Cai F, Wen J, He F, Xia Y, Xu W, Zhang Y, Jiang L, Li J. SC-Unext: A Lightweight Image Segmentation Model with Cellular Mechanism for Breast Ultrasound Tumor Diagnosis. JOURNAL OF IMAGING INFORMATICS IN MEDICINE 2024:10.1007/s10278-024-01042-9. [PMID: 38424276 DOI: 10.1007/s10278-024-01042-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Revised: 01/13/2024] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 03/02/2024]
Abstract
Automatic breast ultrasound image segmentation plays an important role in medical image processing. However, current methods for breast ultrasound segmentation suffer from high computational complexity and large model parameters, particularly when dealing with complex images. In this paper, we take the Unext network as a basis and utilize its encoder-decoder features. And taking inspiration from the mechanisms of cellular apoptosis and division, we design apoptosis and division algorithms to improve model performance. We propose a novel segmentation model which integrates the division and apoptosis algorithms and introduces spatial and channel convolution blocks into the model. Our proposed model not only improves the segmentation performance of breast ultrasound tumors, but also reduces the model parameters and computational resource consumption time. The model was evaluated on the breast ultrasound image dataset and our collected dataset. The experiments show that the SC-Unext model achieved Dice scores of 75.29% and accuracy of 97.09% on the BUSI dataset, and on the collected dataset, it reached Dice scores of 90.62% and accuracy of 98.37%. Meanwhile, we conducted a comparison of the model's inference speed on CPUs to verify its efficiency in resource-constrained environments. The results indicated that the SC-Unext model achieved an inference speed of 92.72 ms per instance on devices equipped only with CPUs. The model's number of parameters and computational resource consumption are 1.46M and 2.13 GFlops, respectively, which are lower compared to other network models. Due to its lightweight nature, the model holds significant value for various practical applications in the medical field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fenglin Cai
- Department of Intelligent Technology and Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Jiaying Wen
- Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People's Republic of China
| | - Fangzhou He
- Department of Intelligent Technology and Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China
| | - Yulong Xia
- Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People's Republic of China
| | - Weijun Xu
- Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People's Republic of China
| | - Yong Zhang
- Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People's Republic of China
| | - Li Jiang
- Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People's Republic of China.
| | - Jie Li
- Department of Intelligent Technology and Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing, 401331, People's Republic of China.
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Li W, Gao L, Du Y, Wang Y, Yang X, Wang H, Li J. Ultrasound microflow patterns help in distinguishing malignant from benign thyroid nodules. Cancer Imaging 2024; 24:18. [PMID: 38268031 PMCID: PMC10809443 DOI: 10.1186/s40644-024-00663-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/11/2024] [Indexed: 01/26/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Vascular features are not commonly used to evaluate thyroid nodules by conventional ultrasound due to the low sensitivity. Superb Microvascular Imaging (SMI) is a new ultrasonic Doppler technology that specializes in depicting microvessels and low-speed flow. The objective of this study was to explore the value of microflow features on SMI in differentiating malignant from benign thyroid nodules. METHODS One hundred and seventy-seven adult patients with thyroid nodules in our center from October 2021 to June 2022 with available histopathological results were recruited, including 125 malignant nodules and 123 benign nodules. Preoperative ultrasound was performed using greyscale, Color Doppler Flow Imaging (CDFI), monochrome SMI (mSMI) and color SMI (cSMI). Vascular features such as flow richness, microflow distribution and microflow patterns of malignant thyroid nodules were compared with those of benign nodules. RESULTS Penetrating vessel ≥ 1 (82.4% in the malignant group vs. 30.9% in the benign group, P < 0.001), the crab claw-like pattern (64.0% vs. 10.6%, P < 0.001) and the root hair-like pattern (8.0% vs. 2.4%, P = 0.049) were common in malignant thyroid nodules, among which the crab claw-like pattern was an independent risk factor for malignant thyroid nodules. The wheel-like pattern (1.6% in the malignant group vs. 33.3% in the benign group, P < 0.001) and the arborescent pattern (0 vs. 19.5%, P < 0.001) were more likely to appear in benign nodules. The diagnostic specificities of the crab claw-like pattern and the root hair-like pattern for malignant thyroid nodules were 0.894, 0.976, and the positive predictive values were 0.860, 0.769. The diagnostic specificities of the wheel-like pattern and the arborescent pattern for benign thyroid nodules were 0.984, 1.000, and the positive predictive values were 0.953, 1.000. CONCLUSIONS The crab claw-like pattern and the root hair-like pattern were microflow characteristics of malignant thyroid nodules. The wheel-like pattern and the arborescent pattern could help exclude the diagnosis of thyroid cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wanying Li
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
| | - Luying Gao
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
| | - Yiyan Du
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
- Department of Ultrasound, Wuxi Branch of Ruijin Hospital, Jiangsu, China
| | - Ying Wang
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
| | - Xiao Yang
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
| | - Hongyan Wang
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
| | - Jianchu Li
- Department of Ultrasound, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
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Adusei SA, Sabeti S, Larson NB, Dalvin LA, Fatemi M, Alizad A. Quantitative Biomarkers Derived from a Novel, Contrast-Free Ultrasound, High-Definition Microvessel Imaging for Differentiating Choroidal Tumors. Cancers (Basel) 2024; 16:395. [PMID: 38254884 PMCID: PMC10814019 DOI: 10.3390/cancers16020395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2023] [Revised: 12/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 01/24/2024] Open
Abstract
Angiogenesis has an essential role in the de novo evolution of choroidal melanoma as well as choroidal nevus transformation into melanoma. Differentiating early-stage melanoma from nevus is of high clinical importance; thus, imaging techniques that provide objective information regarding tumor microvasculature structures could aid accurate early detection. Herein, we investigated the feasibility of quantitative high-definition microvessel imaging (qHDMI) for differentiation of choroidal tumors in humans. This new ultrasound-based technique encompasses a series of morphological filtering and vessel enhancement techniques, enabling the visualization of tumor microvessels as small as 150 microns and extracting vessel morphological features as new tumor biomarkers. Distributional differences between the malignant melanomas and benign nevi were tested on 37 patients with choroidal tumors using a non-parametric Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and statistical significance was declared for biomarkers with p-values < 0.05. The ocular oncology diagnosis was choroidal melanoma (malignant) in 21 and choroidal nevus (benign) in 15 patients. The mean thickness of benign and malignant masses was 1.70 ± 0.40 mm and 3.81 ± 2.63 mm, respectively. Six HDMI biomarkers, including number of vessel segments (p = 0.003), number of branch points (p = 0.003), vessel density (p = 0.03), maximum tortuosity (p = 0.001), microvessel fractal dimension (p = 0.002), and maximum diameter (p = 0.003) exhibited significant distributional differences between the two groups. Contrast-free HDMI provided noninvasive imaging and quantification of microvessels of choroidal tumors. The results of this pilot study indicate the potential use of qHDMI as a complementary tool for characterization of small ocular tumors and early detection of choroidal melanoma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shaheeda A. Adusei
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA (M.F.)
| | - Soroosh Sabeti
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA (M.F.)
| | - Nicholas B. Larson
- Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Lauren A. Dalvin
- Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Mostafa Fatemi
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA (M.F.)
| | - Azra Alizad
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA (M.F.)
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
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Luo R, Zhang Y, Jiang W, Wang Y, Luo Y. Value of micro-flow imaging and high-definition micro-flow imaging in differentiating malignant and benign breast lesions. Clin Radiol 2024; 79:e48-e56. [PMID: 37932209 DOI: 10.1016/j.crad.2023.10.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/09/2023] [Revised: 09/03/2023] [Accepted: 10/08/2023] [Indexed: 11/08/2023]
Abstract
AIM To evaluate the value of non-contrast micro-flow imaging (MFI) and high-definition micro-flow imaging (HD-MFI) in differentiating malignant and benign breast lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred and thirty-three patients with 138 breast lesions (80 benign and 58 malignant lesions) were examined using colour Doppler flow imaging (CDFI), MFI, and HD-MFI before biopsy, with blood flow signals graded into four types (grade 0, 1, 2, and 3) and penetrating vessels evaluated. The micro-vascular patterns of MFI and HD-MFI were evaluated and classified into five patterns: avascular, line-like, tree-like, root hair-like, and crab claw-like pattern. The diagnostic efficiency of micro-vascular patterns was analysed. Moreover, ultrasound Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) 4A lesions were also re-assessed according to the micro-vascular patterns of MFI or HD-MFI. RESULTS The capability of detecting blood flow and penetrating vessels from high to low was HD-MFI, MFI, and CDFI, respectively (p<0.05). Rich blood flow signals, penetrating vessels, and root hair-like or crab claw-like pattern were more likely in malignant breast lesions, while few blood flow signals, tree-like pattern were mostly in benign lesions (p<0.05). The diagnostic efficiency of HD-MFI and MFI were higher than CDFI (p>0.05). MFI could reduce unnecessary biopsy of 52 US BI-RADS 4A lesions but with two malignancies missed, while 56 ultrasound BI-RADS 4A lesions could be downgraded by HD-MFI with none malignancies missed. CONCLUSIONS MFI and HD-MFI can detect more blood flow in breast lesions than CDFI, and could help distinguish benign and malignant breast lesions. HD-MFI could reduce the unnecessary biopsy of US BI-RADS 4A lesions without missed malignancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- R Luo
- Medical College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China; Department of Ultrasound, Division of First Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Y Zhang
- Department of Ultrasound, Division of First Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - W Jiang
- Department of Ultrasound, Division of First Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Y Wang
- Department of Ultrasound, Division of First Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Y Luo
- Department of Ultrasound, Division of First Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China.
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Adusei S, Ternifi R, Fatemi M, Alizad A. Custom-made flow phantoms for quantitative ultrasound microvessel imaging. ULTRASONICS 2023; 134:107092. [PMID: 37364357 PMCID: PMC10530522 DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2023.107092] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2023] [Revised: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/21/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
Morphologically realistic flow phantoms are essential experimental tools for quantitative ultrasound-based microvessel imaging. As new quantitative flow imaging tools are developed, the need for more complex vessel-mimicking phantoms is indisputable. In this article, we propose a method for fabricating phantoms with sub-millimeter channels consisting of branches and curvatures in various shapes and sizes suitable for quantifying vessel morphological features. We used different tissue-mimicking materials (TMMs) compatible with ultrasound imaging as the base and metal wires of different diameters (0.15-1.25 mm) to create wall-less channels. The TMMs used are silicone rubber, plastisol, conventional gelatin, and medical gelatin. Mother channels in these phantoms were made in diameters of 1.25 mm or 0.3 mm and the daughter channels in diameters 0.3 mm or 0.15 mm. Bifurcations were created by soldering wires together at branch points. Quantitative parameters were assessed, and accuracy of measurements from the ground truth were determined. Channel diameters were seen to have increased (76-270%) compared to the initial state in the power Doppler images, partly due to blood mimicking fluid pressure. Amongst the microflow phantoms made from the different TMMs, the medical gelatin phantom was selected as the best option for microflow imaging, fulfilling the objective of being easy to fabricate with high transmittance while having a speed of sound and acoustic attenuation close to human tissue. A flow velocity of 0.85 ± 0.01 mm/s, comparable to physiological flow velocity was observed in the smallest diameter phantom (medical gelatin branch) presented here. We successfully constructed more complex geometries, including tortuous and multibranch channels using the medical gelatin as the TMM. We anticipate this will create new avenues for validating quantitative ultrasound microvessel imaging techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shaheeda Adusei
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Redouane Ternifi
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Mostafa Fatemi
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Azra Alizad
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA.
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Ferroni G, Sabeti S, Abdus-Shakur T, Scalise L, Carter JM, Fazzio RT, Larson NB, Fatemi M, Alizad A. Noninvasive prediction of axillary lymph node breast cancer metastasis using morphometric analysis of nodal tumor microvessels in a contrast-free ultrasound approach. Breast Cancer Res 2023; 25:65. [PMID: 37296471 PMCID: PMC10257266 DOI: 10.1186/s13058-023-01670-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/02/2023] [Indexed: 06/12/2023] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE Changes in microcirculation of axillary lymph nodes (ALNs) may indicate metastasis. Reliable noninvasive imaging technique to quantify such variations is lacking. We aim to develop and investigate a contrast-free ultrasound quantitative microvasculature imaging technique for detection of metastatic ALN in vivo. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN The proposed ultrasound-based technique, high-definition microvasculature imaging (HDMI) provides superb images of tumor microvasculature at sub-millimeter size scales and enables quantitative analysis of microvessels structures. We evaluated the new HDMI technique on 68 breast cancer patients with ultrasound-identified suspicious ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes recommended for fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB). HDMI was conducted before the FNAB and vessel morphological features were extracted, analyzed, and the results were correlated with the histopathology. RESULTS Out of 15 evaluated quantitative HDMI biomarkers, 11 were significantly different in metastatic and reactive ALNs (10 with P << 0.01 and one with 0.01 < P < 0.05). We further showed that through analysis of these biomarkers, a predictive model trained on HDMI biomarkers combined with clinical information (i.e., age, node size, cortical thickness, and BI-RADS score) could identify metastatic lymph nodes with an area under the curve of 0.9 (95% CI [0.82,0.98]), sensitivity of 90%, and specificity of 88%. CONCLUSIONS The promising results of our morphometric analysis of HDMI on ALNs offer a new means of detecting lymph node metastasis when used as a complementary imaging tool to conventional ultrasound. The fact that it does not require injection of contrast agents simplifies its use in routine clinical practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Ferroni
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
| | - Soroosh Sabeti
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
| | - Tasneem Abdus-Shakur
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st. St. SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
| | - Lorenzo Scalise
- Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Science, Marche Polytechnic University, 60131, Ancona, Italy
| | - Jodi M Carter
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN, USA
- Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
| | - Robert T Fazzio
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st. St. SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
| | - Nicholas B Larson
- Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
| | - Mostafa Fatemi
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
| | - Azra Alizad
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA.
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 200 1st. St. SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA.
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Kurti M, Sabeti S, Robinson KA, Scalise L, Larson NB, Fatemi M, Alizad A. Quantitative Biomarkers Derived from a Novel Contrast-Free Ultrasound High-Definition Microvessel Imaging for Distinguishing Thyroid Nodules. Cancers (Basel) 2023; 15:cancers15061888. [PMID: 36980774 PMCID: PMC10046818 DOI: 10.3390/cancers15061888] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2023] [Revised: 03/09/2023] [Accepted: 03/19/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Low specificity in current ultrasound modalities for thyroid cancer detection necessitates the development of new imaging modalities for optimal characterization of thyroid nodules. Herein, the quantitative biomarkers of a new high-definition microvessel imaging (HDMI) were evaluated for discrimination of benign from malignant thyroid nodules. Without the help of contrast agents, this new ultrasound-based quantitative technique utilizes processing methods including clutter filtering, denoising, vessel enhancement filtering, morphological filtering, and vessel segmentation to resolve tumor microvessels at size scales of a few hundred microns and enables the extraction of vessel morphological features as new tumor biomarkers. We evaluated quantitative HDMI on 92 patients with 92 thyroid nodules identified in ultrasound. A total of 12 biomarkers derived from vessel morphological parameters were associated with pathology results. Using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, six of the twelve biomarkers were significantly different in distribution between the malignant and benign nodules (all p < 0.01). A support vector machine (SVM)-based classification model was trained on these six biomarkers, and the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.9005 (95% CI: [0.8279,0.9732]) with sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 0.7778, 0.9474, and 0.8929, respectively. When additional clinical data, namely TI-RADS, age, and nodule size were added to the features, model performance reached an AUC of 0.9044 (95% CI: [0.8331,0.9757]) with sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 0.8750, 0.8235, and 0.8400, respectively. Our findings suggest that tumor vessel morphological features may improve the characterization of thyroid nodules.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melisa Kurti
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Soroosh Sabeti
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Kathryn A Robinson
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Lorenzo Scalise
- Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Science, Polytechnic University of Marchedelle Marche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
| | - Nicholas B Larson
- Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Mostafa Fatemi
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
| | - Azra Alizad
- Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
- Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
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