Relevance of two manual tumour volume estimation methods for diffuse low-grade gliomas

• Main Authors: Meriem Ben Abdallah, Marie Blonski, Sophie Wantz-Mézières, Yann. Gaudeau, Luc Taillandier, Jean-Marie Moureaux
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2018-02-01
• Series: Healthcare Technology Letters
• Subjects: tumours; cancer; brain; biomedical MRI; medical image processing; image reconstruction; image segmentation; statistical analysis; manual tumour volume estimation methods; diffuse low-grade gliomas; MRI dataset estimation; three-diameters solution; software-based volume reconstruction; manual segmentations approach; inter-practitioners variability; software-based manual segmentations; DLGGs MRI datasets; delineated DLGGs' MRI scans; segmented tumour volumes; pixels; resected DLGGs
• Online Access: https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals/10.1049/htl.2017.0013

Management of diffuse low-grade glioma (DLGG) relies extensively on tumour volume estimation from MRI datasets. Two methods are currently clinically used to define this volume: the commonly used three-diameters solution and the more rarely used software-based volume reconstruction from the manual segmentations approach. The authors conducted an initial study of inter-practitioners’ variability of software-based manual segmentations on DLGGs MRI datasets. A panel of 13 experts from various specialties and years of experience delineated 12 DLGGs’ MRI scans. A statistical analysis on the segmented tumour volumes and pixels indicated that the individual practitioner, the years of experience and the specialty seem to have no significant impact on the segmentation of DLGGs. This is an interesting result as it had not yet been demonstrated and as it encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration. Their second study was with the three-diameters method, investigating its impact and that of the software-based volume reconstruction from manual segmentations method on tumour volume. They relied on the same dataset and on a participant from the first study. They compared the average of tumour volumes acquired by software reconstruction from manual segmentations method with tumour volumes obtained with the three-diameters method. The authors found that there is no statistically significant difference between the volumes estimated with the two approaches. These results correspond to non-operated and easily delineable DLGGs and are particularly interesting for time-consuming CUBE MRIs. Nonetheless, the three-diameters method has limitations in estimating tumour volumes for resected DLGGs, for which case the software-based manual segmentation method becomes more appropriate.