13,106 research outputs found
Brain Tumor Synthetic Segmentation in 3D Multimodal MRI Scans
The magnetic resonance (MR) analysis of brain tumors is widely used for
diagnosis and examination of tumor subregions. The overlapping area among the
intensity distribution of healthy, enhancing, non-enhancing, and edema regions
makes the automatic segmentation a challenging task. Here, we show that a
convolutional neural network trained on high-contrast images can transform the
intensity distribution of brain lesions in its internal subregions.
Specifically, a generative adversarial network (GAN) is extended to synthesize
high-contrast images. A comparison of these synthetic images and real images of
brain tumor tissue in MR scans showed significant segmentation improvement and
decreased the number of real channels for segmentation. The synthetic images
are used as a substitute for real channels and can bypass real modalities in
the multimodal brain tumor segmentation framework. Segmentation results on
BraTS 2019 dataset demonstrate that our proposed approach can efficiently
segment the tumor areas. In the end, we predict patient survival time based on
volumetric features of the tumor subregions as well as the age of each case
through several regression models
Patient-Specific Method of Generating Parametric Maps of Patlak K(i) without Blood Sampling or Metabolite Correction: A Feasibility Study.
Currently, kinetic analyses using dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) experience very limited use despite their potential for improving quantitative accuracy in several clinical and research applications. For targeted volume applications, such as radiation treatment planning, treatment monitoring, and cerebral metabolic studies, the key to implementation of these methods is the determination of an arterial input function, which can include time-consuming analysis of blood samples for metabolite correction. Targeted kinetic applications would become practical for the clinic if blood sampling and metabolite correction could be avoided. To this end, we developed a novel method (Patlak-P) of generating parametric maps that is identical to Patlak K(i) (within a global scalar multiple) but does not require the determination of the arterial input function or metabolite correction. In this initial study, we show that Patlak-P (a) mimics Patlak K(i) images in terms of visual assessment and target-to-background (TB) ratios of regions of elevated uptake, (b) has higher visual contrast and (generally) better image quality than SUV, and (c) may have an important role in improving radiotherapy planning, therapy monitoring, and neurometabolism studies
Characterization of Metastatic Tumor Formation by the Colony Size Distribution
Knowledge regarding the kinetics of metastatic tumor formation, as related to
the growth of the primary tumor, represents a fundamental issue in cancer
biology. Using an in vivo mammalian model, we show here that one can obtain
useful information from the frequency distribution of the sizes of metastatic
colonies in distant organs after serial sectioning and image reconstruction. To
explain the experimental findings, we constructed a biophysical model based on
the respective growth patterns of the primary tumor and metastases and a
stochastic process of metastatic colony formation. Heterogeneous distributions
of various biological parameters were considered. We found that the elementary
assumption of exponential forms of growth for the primary tumor and metastatic
colonies predicts a linear relation on a log-log plot of a metastatic colony
size distribution, which was consistent with the experimental results.
Furthermore, the slope of the curve signifies the ratio of growth rates of the
primary and the metastases. Non-exponential (Gompertzian and logistic) tumor
growth patterns were also incorporated into the theory to explain possible
deviation from the log-log linear relation. The observed metastasis-free
probability also supported the assumption of a time-dependent Poisson process.
With this approach, we determined the mechanistic parameters governing the
process of metastatogenesis in the lungs for two murine tumor cell lines (KHT
and MCaK). Since biological parameters specified in the model could be obtained
in the laboratory, a workable metastatic "assay" may be established for various
malignancies and in turn contribute in formulating rational treatment regimens
for subclinical metastases.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
Predicting respiratory motion for real-time tumour tracking in radiotherapy
Purpose. Radiation therapy is a local treatment aimed at cells in and around
a tumor. The goal of this study is to develop an algorithmic solution for
predicting the position of a target in 3D in real time, aiming for the short
fixed calibration time for each patient at the beginning of the procedure.
Accurate predictions of lung tumor motion are expected to improve the precision
of radiation treatment by controlling the position of a couch or a beam in
order to compensate for respiratory motion during radiation treatment.
Methods. For developing the algorithmic solution, data mining techniques are
used. A model form from the family of exponential smoothing is assumed, and the
model parameters are fitted by minimizing the absolute disposition error, and
the fluctuations of the prediction signal (jitter). The predictive performance
is evaluated retrospectively on clinical datasets capturing different behavior
(being quiet, talking, laughing), and validated in real-time on a prototype
system with respiratory motion imitation.
Results. An algorithmic solution for respiratory motion prediction (called
ExSmi) is designed. ExSmi achieves good accuracy of prediction (error
mm/s) with acceptable jitter values (5-7 mm/s), as tested on out-of-sample
data. The datasets, the code for algorithms and the experiments are openly
available for research purposes on a dedicated website.
Conclusions. The developed algorithmic solution performs well to be
prototyped and deployed in applications of radiotherapy
Bayesian inference for stochastic differential equation mixed effects models of a tumor xenography study
We consider Bayesian inference for stochastic differential equation mixed
effects models (SDEMEMs) exemplifying tumor response to treatment and regrowth
in mice. We produce an extensive study on how a SDEMEM can be fitted using both
exact inference based on pseudo-marginal MCMC and approximate inference via
Bayesian synthetic likelihoods (BSL). We investigate a two-compartments SDEMEM,
these corresponding to the fractions of tumor cells killed by and survived to a
treatment, respectively. Case study data considers a tumor xenography study
with two treatment groups and one control, each containing 5-8 mice. Results
from the case study and from simulations indicate that the SDEMEM is able to
reproduce the observed growth patterns and that BSL is a robust tool for
inference in SDEMEMs. Finally, we compare the fit of the SDEMEM to a similar
ordinary differential equation model. Due to small sample sizes, strong prior
information is needed to identify all model parameters in the SDEMEM and it
cannot be determined which of the two models is the better in terms of
predicting tumor growth curves. In a simulation study we find that with a
sample of 17 mice per group BSL is able to identify all model parameters and
distinguish treatment groups.Comment: Minor revision: posterior predictive checks for BSL have ben updated
(both theory and results). Code on GitHub has ben revised accordingl
Joint fitting reveals hidden interactions in tumor growth
Tumor growth is often the result of the simultaneous development of two or
more cancer cell populations. Their interaction between them characterizes the
system evolution. To obtain information about these interactions we apply the
recently developed vector universality (VUN) formalism to various instances of
competition between tumor populations. The formalism allows us: (a) to quantify
the growth mechanisms of a HeLa cell colony, describing the phenotype switching
responsible for its fast expansion, (b) to reliably reconstruct the evolution
of the necrotic and viable fractions in both in vitro and in vivo tumors using
data for the time dependences of the total masses, and (c) to show how the
shedding of cells leading to subspheroid formation is beneficial to both the
spheroid and subspheroid populations, suggesting that shedding is a strong
positive influence on cancer dissemination
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