A topological analysis of targeted In-111 uptake in SPECT images of murine tumors

Single-photon emission computed tomography images of murine tumors are interpreted as the values of functions on a three-dimensional domain. Motivated by Morse theory, the local maxima of the tumor image functions are analyzed. This analysis captures tumor heterogeneity that cannot be identified with standard measures. Utilizing decreasing sequences of uptake values to filter the images, a modified form of the standard persistence diagrams for 0-dimensional persistent homology as well as novel childhood diagrams are constructed. Applying statistical methods to time series of persistence and childhood diagrams detects heterogeneous uptake of radioactive antibody within tumors over time and distinguishes uptake in two groups of mice injected with different labeled antibodies.