Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jan 27, 2022; 14(1): 244-259
Published online Jan 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i1.244
Can the computed tomography texture analysis of colorectal liver metastases predict the response to first-line cytotoxic chemotherapy?
Etienne Rabe, Dania Cioni, Laura Baglietto, Marco Fornili, Michela Gabelloni, Emanuele Neri
Etienne Rabe, Dania Cioni, Michela Gabelloni, Emanuele Neri, Academic Radiology, Master in Oncologic Imaging, Department of Translational Research, University of Pisa, Pisa 56126, Italy
Etienne Rabe, Bay Radiology-Cancercare Oncology Centre, Bay Radiology, Port Elizabeth 6001, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Laura Baglietto, Marco Fornili, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa 56126, Italy
Author contributions: Rabe E conceptualized and designed the study; Neri E assisted with the study methodology and supervised the study as Master tutor; Rabe E collected the data, performed the formal image analysis and wrote the original draft; Baglietto L and Fornili M performed the statistical analysis of the data and contributed to the interpretation of the results; Cioni D, Baglietto L, Fornili M, Gabelloni M and Neri E reviewed and revised the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The Protocol of this clinical trial was submitted for approval to the BLINDED Committee (BLINDED), a research ethics committee registered with the BLINDED Council. Written approval has been granted by BLINDED for the conduct of the trial. The study has been structured in accordance with the Guidelines on Clinical Trials and Ethics in Health Research, published by the Department of Health and the Declaration of Helsinki (last updated October 2013), adopted by the World Medical Association (WMA), which deals with the recommendations guiding doctors in biomedical research involving human participants. Copies of these documents may be obtained upon reasonable request.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was waived.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Etienne Rabe, Academic Radiology, Master in Oncologic Imaging, Department of Translational Research, University of Pisa, Lungarno Antonio Pacinotti Street 43, Pisa 56126, Italy. etienne.rabe@gmail.com
Received: April 25, 2021
Peer-review started: April 25, 2021
First decision: June 13, 2021
Revised: June 15, 2021
Accepted: December 2, 2021
Article in press: December 2, 2021
Published online: January 27, 2022
Processing time: 270 Days and 22.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Radiomics is a rapidly growing field of radiological research which has the potential to assist with the diagnosis, prognostication and therapeutic response prediction of various cancers and may potentially play an important role in personalized patient care. This retrospective study aimed to identify potential new imaging biomarkers with computed tomography texture analysis which can predict the response to first-line cytotoxic chemotherapy in non-necrotic colorectal liver metastases. Eight first and second order texture features, but particularly minimum histogram gradient intensity and long run low grey level emphasis are significantly correlated with treatment response. These preliminary results need to be validated and confirmed on larger patient cohort studies.