Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Analysis of the early response to chemotherapy in lung cancer using apparent diffusion coefficient single-slice histogram

Jianxing Xu¹, Jiangang Zheng², Zhengyang Zhou¹, Xiao Han³

¹Department of Radiology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166; ²Department of Radiology, Affiliated Wujin Hospital of Jiangsu University, Changzhou 213000; ³Key Laboratory of Human Functional Genomics of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China.

For correspondence:- Xiao Han Email: hanxjsh@163.com Tel:+862586869425

Accepted: 17 March 2018 Published: 30 April 2018

Citation: Xu J, Zheng J, Zhou Z, Han X. Analysis of the early response to chemotherapy in lung cancer using apparent diffusion coefficient single-slice histogram. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(4):681-686 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i4.17

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the application of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values derived from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) using single-slice histogram analysis to study the chemotherapy responses in lung cancer.

Methods: A total of 22 chemotherapy patients with advanced lung cancer from the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital (Nanjing, China) were included in the study. We obtained DWI before and during chemotherapy, performed single-slice histogram analysis of ADC values, and assessed responses after 3 months of chemotherapy. Differences in ADC histogram parameters were compared between the responder and non-responder groups.

Results: After therapy, we classified 13 as responders and 9 patients as non-responders. The recorded peak ADC value (ADC_peak) and lowest ADC value (ADC_lowest) did not show any significant difference in baseline ADC_lowest and ADC_peak between responders and non-responders. After chemotherapy, 13 responders had significant increase in ADC_lowest and ADC_peak compared with pre-treatment values (p < 0.001). ADC_lowest significantly increased in 9 non-responders (p < 0.05), although ADC_peak did not significantly increase. ADC_peak changes were significantly larger in the responder group than in the non-responder group (p = 0.024). ADC_lowest changes after treatment were larger in the responder group than in the non-responder group, though not significantly.

Conclusion: ADC values derived from single-slice histogram analysis may provide a useful and clinically feasible method for monitoring early chemotherapy response in patients with lung cancer.

Keywords: Lung cancer, Chemotherapy, Apparent diffusion coefficient values, Diffusion-weighted imaging, Single-slice histogram analysis