Automatic Detection of Bone Metastasis in Vertebrae by Using CT Images

—Commonly diagnosed in advanced breast cancer patients, especially in vertebrae, bone metastases can appear lytic, sclerotic, or anywhere in between these extremes. Given its ability to alter the therapeutic strategy, bone metastases is a critical issue in staging and follow-up of breast cancer. This work presents a novel computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to detect metastasis in vertebrae by using whole body computed tomography (CT). An automated method is developed to extract ROIs of trabecular centrum from vertebrae. Eleven texture features and their inter-slice differences are then calculated for each ROI. Next, total 33 features are fed into an artificial neural network (ANN) to determine whether any abnormality occurs in the trabecular centrum. The datasets include 35 breast cancer patients who underwent a whole-body PET/CT scan between 2007 and 2011. The average sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy are 85.4%, 91.8%, and 89.7%, respectively. Capable of identifying possible bone lesions by using CT images, the proposed CAD system can incorporate with features of nuclear medicine images to increase diagnostic accuracy in an automated CAD system for estimating bone metastases quantitatively.

[1]  Jianhua Yao,et al.  Lytic metastases in thoracolumbar spine: computer-aided detection at CT--preliminary study. , 2007, Radiology.

[2]  J L Bloem,et al.  Detection of vertebral metastases: comparison between MR imaging and bone scintigraphy. , 1991, Radiographics : a review publication of the Radiological Society of North America, Inc.

[3]  J A Frank,et al.  Detection of malignant bone tumors: MR imaging vs scintigraphy. , 1990, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[4]  R E O'Mara,et al.  Skeletal scanning in neoplastic disease , 1976, Cancer.

[5]  J. Ruhlmann,et al.  Value of 18fluoro-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography in the staging of recurrent breast carcinoma. , 1997, Anticancer research.

[6]  DAVID A. WONG,et al.  Spinal Metastases: The Obvious, the Occult, and the Impostors , 1990, Spine.

[7]  G D Roodman,et al.  Biology of osteoclast activation in cancer. , 2001, Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

[8]  R. Daffner,et al.  MRI in the detection of malignant infiltration of bone marrow. , 1986, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[9]  R. Tadmor,et al.  Early MR Demonstration of Spinal Metastases in Patients with Normal Radiographs and CT and Radionuclide Bone Scans , 1989, Journal of computer assisted tomography.

[10]  Mary I O'Connor,et al.  Diagnosis of occult bone metastases: positron emission tomography. , 2003, Clinical orthopaedics and related research.

[11]  Anju Vyas.  Print , 2003 .

[12]  Kei Yamada,et al.  Pitfalls of FDG-PET for the diagnosis of osteoblastic bone metastases in patients with breast cancer , 2005, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

[13]  G. Bastert,et al.  Metastatic breast cancer: clinical course, prognosis and therapy related to the first site of metastasis , 2000, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

[14]  R. Perez-Tamayo,et al.  Localization of Entamoeba histolytica Amebopore in Amebic Liver Abscesses in Hamsters , 2008, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[15]  J H Thrall,et al.  Solitary abnormalities in bone scans of patients with extraosseous malignancies. , 1976, Radiology.

[16]  Merrick Mv,et al.  Review article-Bone scanning. , 1975 .

[17]  S. Yasuda,et al.  Whole body PET for the evaluation of bony metastases in patients with breast cancer: comparison with 99Tcm-MDP bone scintigraphy , 2001, Nuclear medicine communications.

[18]  M.,et al.  Statistical and Structural Approaches to Texture , 2022 .

[19]  C. Reed,et al.  FDG-PET uptake in occult acute pelvic fracture , 2004, Skeletal Radiology.

[20]  I. Fogelman,et al.  F-18 FDG Positron Emission Tomography and Benign Fractures , 2003, Clinical nuclear medicine.

[21]  N. Otsu.  A threshold selection method from gray level histograms , 1979 .

[22]  M. Merrick,et al.  Review article-Bone scanning. , 1975, The British journal of radiology.

[23]  D. Kido,et al.  Comparative sensitivity of CT scans, radiographs and radionuclide bone scans in detecting metastatic calvarial lesions. , 1978, Radiology.

[24]  Stephen Kaptoge,et al.  Can 16-detector multislice CT exclude skeletal lesions during tumour staging? Implications for the cancer patient , 2006, European Radiology.

[25]  L. Rybak,et al.  Radiological imaging for the diagnosis of bone metastases. , 2001, The quarterly journal of nuclear medicine : official publication of the Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine (AIMN) [and] the International Association of Radiopharmacology.

[26]  C S Galasko,et al.  Mechanisms of lytic and blastic metastatic disease of bone. , 1982, Clinical orthopaedics and related research.

[27]  P. Rigo,et al.  Fluorine-18 deoxyglucose positron emission tomography for the detection of bone metastases in patients with non-small cell lung cancer , 1998, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

[28]  R. Rubens,et al.  Bone metastases--the clinical problem. , 1998, European journal of cancer.