Dear MR community,
we intend to perform a study concerning the better differentiation between residual tumor tissue and radiation necrosis amongst others using T2* and T1 perfusion. Can anyone recommend a freely available and reliable evaluation software for quantitation (only for study use)? Measurements will be done at a Philips Scanner.
Many thanks in advance, Annett.
Hi,
I am not speaking from an expert point of view but I am of the opinion that you may need to develop a software which suits the problem. This is because the intended better differentiation is likely to depend on a very wide variation of T1 and T2*; these parameters are probably dependent on the radiation treatment plan used, the size of tissue exposed to radiation, type of radiation, and the duration of radiation therapy. There are simply too many dependencies. I suggest the development of a model which addresses experimental observations and challenges. Developing a software from such model should not be a problem.
Well, I´m not sure about your exact question. If you want an automatic algorithm that is able to differentiate both tissues, I have no idea - although I know several programmes that are able to semi-automatically identify e.g. brain lesions. There might be some equivalent algorithms for your question...
If the actual question was how to analyze the scans after tumor tissue vs radiation necrosis has been identified, you could probably use lesion mapping tools.
In lesion mapping we identify lesions and delineate them manually e.g. in MRIcron (http://www.mccauslandcenter.sc.edu/mricro/mricron/), resulting in binary NIFTI files. If the scans differ in resolution, you might also reslice them via SPM. MRIcron is able to tell you the size of a manually drawn map. With free available SPM scripts or free toolboxes you can also open such NIFTI with matlab and automatically analyze them.
Dear Michael & Christoph,
many thanks for your suggestions.. I will try it out.
Best regards from Dresden , Annett
Dear Peter,
I have never before heard about it; but it sounds very interesting. Many thanks for your suggestion and best regards, Annett.