Effects of alterations in positron emission tomography imaging parameters on radiomics features.

Radiomics studies require large patient cohorts, which often include patients imaged using different imaging protocols. We aimed to determine the impact of variability in imaging protocol parameters and interscanner variability using a phantom that produced feature values similar to those of patients. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans of a Hoffman brain phantom were acquired on GE Discovery 710, Siemens mCT, and Philips Vereos scanners. A standard-protocol scan was acquired on each machine, and then each parameter that could be changed was altered individually. The phantom was contoured with 10 regions of interest (ROIs). Values for 45 features with 2 different preprocessing techniques were extracted for each image. To determine the impact of each parameter on the reliability of each radiomics feature, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated with the ROIs as the subjects and the parameter values as the raters. For interscanner comparisons, we compared the standard deviation of each radiomics feature value from the standard-protocol images to the standard deviation of the same radiomics feature from PET scans of 224 patients with non-small cell lung cancer. When the pixel size was resampled prior to feature extraction, all features had good reliability (ICC > 0.75) for the field of view and matrix size. The time per bed position had excellent reliability (ICC > 0.9) on all features. When the filter cutoff was restricted to values below 6 mm, all features had good reliability. Similarly, when subsets and iterations were restricted to reasonable values used in clinics, almost all features had good reliability. The average ratio of the standard deviation of features on the phantom scans to that of the NSCLC patient scans was 0.73 using fixed-bin-width preprocessing and 0.92 using 64-level preprocessing. Most radiomics feature values had at least good reliability when imaging protocol parameters were within clinically used ranges. However, interscanner variability was about equal to interpatient variability; therefore, caution must be used when combining patients scanned on equipment from different vendors in radiomics data sets.

The effects of dialysis on 131I kinetics and dosimetry in thyroid cancer patients--a pharmacokinetic model.

Currently, an accepted post-surgical treatment of patients with thyroid carcinoma is administration of an ablative dose of I. This treatment is well established based on extensive experience and modeling. However, for patients with renal disease, reduced iodine removal rates result in controversial thyroid doses and potentially excessive red bone marrow doses. There are differences of opinion regarding I dose recommendations ranging from a reduction in dose to an increase in dose compared with conventional amounts. Determination of suitable doses must take into account varying dialysis protocols and absorbed dose considerations to the thyroid and sensitive tissues such as red bone marrow. The specific aim of this study was to develop a simple yet comprehensive compartmental model for I kinetics in patients with thyroid carcinoma and end stage renal disease, which accounts for dialysis and provides absorbed dose estimates for the thyroid as well as the red bone marrow. STELLA, a compartmental modeling software program, was used to develop a kinetic model that includes the blood pool, thyroid, gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, bladder, and a conventional dialysis machine. Benchmarking was performed to demonstrate the validity of the model with data obtained from ICRP 30 and MIRD Dose Estimate Report No. 5. Iodine kinetics were simulated for normal patients, thyroid cancer patients, and patients with thyroid cancer and renal failure undergoing two standard types of dialysis, hemodialysis and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). Results in this work show that thyroid doses to patients with thyroid cancer and renal failure on hemodialysis or CAPD are slightly higher than doses to patients with thyroid cancer and normal renal function. These results further indicate that red bone marrow doses to patients with thyroid cancer and renal failure on dialysis can be significantly higher than red bone marrow doses to patients with thyroid cancer and normal renal function, and thus these patients could benefit from a reduction in administered activity. Thyroid doses and red bone marrow doses to patients on standard hemodialysis depend on both dialysis frequency and the time interval between administration and first dialysis. The results in this study provide guidelines on how much activity a patient on dialysis should receive based on thyroid and red bone marrow absorbed dose (Gy MBq) considerations. This study should help to clarify some of the contradictory recommendations regarding I dose for thyroid carcinoma patients with renal failure.