Temporal subtraction system on torso FDG-PET scans based on statistical image analysis

Diagnostic imaging on FDG-PET scans was often used to evaluate chemotherapy results of cancer patients. Radiologists compare the changes of lesions' activities between previous and current examinations for the evaluation. The purpose of this study was to develop a new computer-aided detection (CAD) system with temporal subtraction technique for FDGPET scans and to show the fundamental usefulness based on an observer performance study. Z-score mapping based on statistical image analysis was newly applied to the temporal subtraction technique. The subtraction images can be obtained based on the anatomical standardization results because all of the patients' scans were deformed into standard body shape. An observer study was performed without and with computer outputs to evaluate the usefulness of the scheme by ROC (receiver operating characteristics) analysis. Readers responded as confidence levels on a continuous scale from absolutely no change to definitely change between two examinations. The recognition performance of the computer outputs for the 43 pairs was 96% sensitivity with 31.1 false-positive marks per scan. The average of area-under-the-ROC-curve (AUC) from 4 readers in the observer performance study was increased from 0.85 without computer outputs to 0.90 with computer outputs (p=0.0389, DBM-MRMC). The average of interpretation time was slightly decreased from 42.11 to 40.04 seconds per case (p=0.625, Wilcoxon test). We concluded that the CAD system for torso FDG-PET scans with temporal subtraction technique might improve the diagnostic accuracy of radiologist in cancer therapy evaluation.