Ricerc@Sapienza

Radiomic is a methodology of advanced quantitative image analysis which uses complex mathematical algorithms to extract characteristic features from imaging data.

Hypothesis:
Radiomic analysis can predict outcomes following standard treatment in rectal cancer patients. We hypothesize that MR imaging¿based radiomics may add value to the current MR imaging assessment for evaluating patients with locally advanced rectal cancer after CRT, improving on qualitative assessment to differentiate patients with clinical partial response from those with cCR after CRT.

Aims:
1.To perform Radiomic evaluation of Patients affected by rectal cancer;
2.To correlate and find radiomic features linked to known prognostic factors;
3.To identify radiomic features able to aid in prediction of pathologic complete response (pCR) and local relapse.

Methods:
50 patients with locally advanced tumour stages II (cT3-4, N0, M0) and III (cT1-4, N+, M0) will be included in this non-randomized, prospective, single-center, trial. After the pre-treatment MRI, CRT will be administered according to international standard protocols. Between six and eight weeks after the treatment, a second post-treatment MRI will be acquired followed by total mesorectal excision (TME). During all MRI examination, tumor segmentation will be performed to extract radiomic features from T2, DWI and DCE. After the segmentation process, segmented images will be computed with Radiomic textural analysis method.

Expected results:
We expect that the radiomics analysis will show better classification performance compared with the qualitative assessment for diagnosing pCR in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer after
neoadjuvant therapy. This radiomic evaluation may become a potential imaging biomarker in the management of rectal cancer after neoadjuvant treatment.