title: Texture analysis of high resolution MRI allows discrimination between febrile and afebrile initial precipitating injury in mesial temporal sclerosis.
abstract: A computational pipeline combining texture analysis and pattern classification algorithms was developed for investigating associations between high-resolution MRI features and histological data. This methodology was tested in the study of dentate gyrus images of sclerotic hippocampi resected from refractory epilepsy patients. Images were acquired using a simple surface coil in a 3.0T MRI scanner. All specimens were subsequently submitted to histological semiquantitative evaluation. The computational pipeline was applied for classifying pixels according to: a) dentate gyrus histological parameters and b) patients' febrile or afebrile initial precipitating insult history. The pipeline results for febrile and afebrile patients achieved 70% classification accuracy, with 78% sensitivity and 80% specificity [area under the reader observer characteristics (ROC) curve: 0.89]. The analysis of the histological data alone was not sufficient to achieve significant power to separate febrile and afebrile groups. Interesting enough, the results from our approach did not show significant correlation with histological parameters (which per se were not enough to classify patient groups). These results showed the potential of adding computational texture analysis together with classification methods for detecting subtle MRI signal differences, a method sufficient to provide good clinical classification. A wide range of applications of this pipeline can also be used in other areas of medical imaging.
authors.affiliation: Brain Institute/Dep. Radiology-Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, Integrated Systems Laboratory, Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Maryana
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Carvalho Alegro
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Valotta Silva
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yumi Bando
authors.forename: Roseli
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: de Deus Lopes
authors.forename: Luiz Henrique
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Martins de Castro
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hungtsu
authors.forename: Carlos Alberto
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Moreira-Filho
authors.forename: Edson
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Amaro
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D018891:Dentate Gyrus / Q000473:pathology*; D002549:Diffuse Cerebral Sclerosis of Schilder / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity