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Deep-learning-based synthesis of post-contrast T1-weighted MRI for tumour response assessment in neuro-oncology: a multicentre, retrospective cohort study.

Department of Neuroradiology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany. Medical Image Computing, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. Neurology Clinic, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany; Clinical Cooperation Unit Neurooncology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. Neurology Clinic, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany. Department of Radiation Oncology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany; Heidelberg Institute of Radiation Oncology, Heidelberg, Germany; Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center, Heidelberg, Germany. Clinical Cooperation Unit Neuroimmunology and Brain Tumor Immunology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany; Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany. Sorbonne Université, Inserm, Institut du Cerveau, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpitaux Universitaires La Pitié Salpêtrière-Charles Foix, Service de Neurologie 2-Mazarin, Paris, France. Department of Medical Oncology, Azienda USL of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. Brain Tumor Center, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Department of Neurology and O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, Division of Neuro-Oncology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA. Malnati Brain Tumor Institute of the Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Neurological Surgery and Department of Neurology, Northwestern Medicine and Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA. Department of Radiation Oncology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany; Medical Image Computing, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Brussels, Belgium. Department of Neurosurgery, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany. Department of Neurology, University Hospital and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Department of Neuroradiology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany. Electronic address: philipp.vollmuth@med.uni-heidelberg.de.

The Lancet. Digital health. 2021;(12):e784-e794
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Abstract

BACKGROUND Gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) are widely used to enhance tissue contrast during MRI scans and play a crucial role in the management of patients with cancer. However, studies have shown gadolinium deposition in the brain after repeated GBCA administration with yet unknown clinical significance. We aimed to assess the feasibility and diagnostic value of synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted MRI generated from pre-contrast MRI sequences through deep convolutional neural networks (dCNN) for tumour response assessment in neuro-oncology. METHODS In this multicentre, retrospective cohort study, we used MRI examinations to train and validate a dCNN for synthesising post-contrast T1-weighted sequences from pre-contrast T1-weighted, T2-weighted, and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery sequences. We used MRI scans with availability of these sequences from 775 patients with glioblastoma treated at Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany (775 MRI examinations); 260 patients who participated in the phase 2 CORE trial (1083 MRI examinations, 59 institutions); and 505 patients who participated in the phase 3 CENTRIC trial (3147 MRI examinations, 149 institutions). Separate training runs to rank the importance of individual sequences and (for a subset) diffusion-weighted imaging were conducted. Independent testing was performed on MRI data from the phase 2 and phase 3 EORTC-26101 trial (521 patients, 1924 MRI examinations, 32 institutions). The similarity between synthetic and true contrast enhancement on post-contrast T1-weighted MRI was quantified using the structural similarity index measure (SSIM). Automated tumour segmentation and volumetric tumour response assessment based on synthetic versus true post-contrast T1-weighted sequences was performed in the EORTC-26101 trial and agreement was assessed with Kaplan-Meier plots. FINDINGS The median SSIM score for predicting contrast enhancement on synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted sequences in the EORTC-26101 test set was 0·818 (95% CI 0·817-0·820). Segmentation of the contrast-enhancing tumour from synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted sequences yielded a median tumour volume of 6·31 cm3 (5·60 to 7·14), thereby underestimating the true tumour volume by a median of -0·48 cm3 (-0·37 to -0·76) with the concordance correlation coefficient suggesting a strong linear association between tumour volumes derived from synthetic versus true post-contrast T1-weighted sequences (0·782, 0·751-0·807, p<0·0001). Volumetric tumour response assessment in the EORTC-26101 trial showed a median time to progression of 4·2 months (95% CI 4·1-5·2) with synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted and 4·3 months (4·1-5·5) with true post-contrast T1-weighted sequences (p=0·33). The strength of the association between the time to progression as a surrogate endpoint for predicting the patients' overall survival in the EORTC-26101 cohort was similar when derived from synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted sequences (hazard ratio of 1·749, 95% CI 1·282-2·387, p=0·0004) and model C-index (0·667, 0·622-0·708) versus true post-contrast T1-weighted MRI (1·799, 95% CI 1·314-2·464, p=0·0003) and model C-index (0·673, 95% CI 0·626-0·711). INTERPRETATION Generating synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted MRI from pre-contrast MRI using dCNN is feasible and quantification of the contrast-enhancing tumour burden from synthetic post-contrast T1-weighted MRI allows assessment of the patient's response to treatment with no significant difference by comparison with true post-contrast T1-weighted sequences with administration of GBCAs. This finding could guide the application of dCNN in radiology to potentially reduce the necessity of GBCA administration. FUNDING Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

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