title: Obtaining quantitative global tumoral state indicators based on whole-body PET/CT scans: a breast cancer case study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In this work we address the need for the computation of quantitative global tumoral state indicators from oncological whole-body PET/computed tomography scans. The combination of such indicators with other oncological information such as tumor markers or biopsy results would prove useful in oncological decision-making scenarios.
  
  
  METHODS
  From an ordering of 100 breast cancer patients on the basis of oncological state through visual analysis by a consensus of nuclear medicine specialists, a set of numerical indicators computed from image analysis of the PET/computed tomography scan is presented, which attempts to summarize a patient's oncological state in a quantitative manner taking into consideration the total tumor volume, aggressiveness, and spread.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results obtained by comparative analysis of the proposed indicators with respect to the experts' evaluation show up to 87% Pearson's correlation coefficient when providing expert-guided PET metabolic tumor volume segmentation and 64% correlation when using completely automatic image analysis techniques.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Global quantitative tumor information obtained by whole-body PET/CT image analysis can prove useful in clinical nuclear medicine settings and oncological decision-making scenarios. The completely automatic computation of such indicators would improve its impact as time efficiency and specialist independence would be achieved.
authors.affiliation: aFaculty of Medicine bComputer Vision Center, Autonomous University of Barcelona cNuclear Medicine Department, Hospital de Sant Pau dFaculty of Mathematics, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sampedro
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Domenech
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Escalera
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D047368:Tumor Burden; D051598:Whole Body Imaging
chemical_list: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18