Open AccessReproducibility of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI derived transfer coefficient Ktrans in lung cancer
Author(s) -
Jean-Philip Daniel Weber,
Judith Spiro,
Matthias Scheffler,
Julie Wolf,
Lucia Nogová,
Marc Tittgemeyer,
David Maintz,
Hendrik Laue,
Thorsten Persigehl
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0265056
Subject(s) - reproducibility , medicine , lung cancer , nuclear medicine , intra rater reliability , magnetic resonance imaging , inter rater reliability , reliability (semiconductor) , radiology , confidence interval , pathology , chemistry , mathematics , power (physics) , rating scale , statistics , physics , quantum mechanics , chromatography
Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) is a useful method to monitor therapy assessment in malignancies but must be reliable and comparable for successful clinical use. The aim of this study was to evaluate the inter- and intrarater reproducibility of DCE-MRI in lung cancer. At this IRB approved single centre study 40 patients with lung cancer underwent up to 5 sequential DCE-MRI examinations. DCE-MRI were performed using a 3.0T system. The volume transfer constant K trans was assessed by three readers using the two-compartment Tofts model. Inter- and intrarater reliability and agreement was calculated by wCV, ICC and their 95% confident intervals. DCE-MRI allowed a quantitative measurement of K trans in 107 tumors where 91 were primary carcinomas or intrapulmonary metastases and 16 were extrapulmonary metastases. K trans showed moderate to good interrater reliability in overall measurements (ICC 0.716–0.841; wCV 30.3–38.4%). K trans in pulmonary lesions ≥ 3 cm showed a good to excellent reliability (ICC 0.773–0.907; wCV 23.0–29.4%) compared to pulmonary lesions < 3 cm showing a moderate to good reliability (ICC 0.710–0.889; wCV 31.6–48.7%). K trans in intrapulmonary lesions showed a good reliability (ICC 0.761–0.873; wCV 28.9–37.5%) compared to extrapulmonary lesions with a poor to moderate reliability (ICC 0.018–0.680; wCV 28.1–51.8%). The overall intrarater agreement was moderate to good (ICC 0.607–0.795; wCV 24.6–30.4%). With K trans , DCE MRI offers a reliable quantitative biomarker for early non-invasive therapy assessment in lung cancer patients, but with a coefficient of variation of up to 48.7% in smaller lung lesions.