Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. More than 85% of cases are currently classified as non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) [1]. Histologically, the two predominant NSCLC pheno­types are adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), which cover about 50% and 40% of all cases, respectively [2]. Lung tumours are characterized by an extraordinarily heterogeneity: the microenvironments with which the tumour cells interact is reflected in presence of different regions, such as areas of high cell density, necrosis, haemorrhage, myxoid change and, above...

Perfusion CT protocol 34 patients (age range 36-81 years) with primary NSCLS, subdivided in 28 ACC and 6 SCC, were enrolled in this study and, at the diagnosis stage, underwent axialCT perfusion (CTp) performed on a 256-slice CT system, feet first in the supine position. Survival data were included in the study. An initial low-dose unenhanced full-body CT scan was performed to identify the target lesions at baseline condition. A 50 mL intravenous bolus of contrast agent was then injected at 5 mL/s for contrast...

In Table 1 we reported the two most significant averaged features values extracted from original and denoised BF maps, and related to for the two subtypes. In addition, "variation" points out the dispersion (i.e., the standard deviation) of the BF values of a perfusion map, and permits to highlight the effects of denoising on BF values. At baseline, differences in BF between AC and SCC are not detected using original BF maps. Indeed, the averaged BF means as well as the averaged kurtosis values extracted...

Results of this study show that denoising of BF maps emphasizes functional features at the diagnosis stage of the two predominant NSCLC subtypes. Indeed the presence of structures such as blood vessels, bronchi, and artefacts within lesion tends to jeopardize results, altering the visual perception of perfusion patterns and the reliability of statistical analysis. By automatically removing these high error regions, more reliable perfusion maps are obtained and more reliable features can be extracted. As a matter of fact, differences in BF values emerged only...

Serena Baiocco, MS Advanced Research Center on Electronic Systems for Information and Communication Technologies “Ercole De Castro” (ARCES), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy [email protected] Domenico Barone, MD Radiology Unit, IRCCS - Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (IRST), Meldola (FC), Italy [email protected] Prof. Giampaolo Gavelli, MD Radiology Unit, IRCCS - Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (IRST), Meldola (FC), Italy [email protected] Prof. Alessandro Bevilacqua, MS, PhD - Department of Computer Science and Engineering (DISI), University...

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