Clinic for Imaging and Intervention, Oslo University Hospital-Rikshospitalet, Sognsvannsvn 20, Oslo, Norway.
Neuroradiology. 2012 May;54(5):435-43. doi: 10.1007/s00234-011-0894-7. Epub 2011 Jun 7.
Change detection is a crucial factor in monitoring of slowly evolving pathologies. The objective of the study was to test a semi-automatic method applied on longitudinal MRI monitoring of volume change in pituitary macroadenomas.
The proposed method is based on a visual comparison of geometrically corrected, co-registered, intensity-normalized contrast-enhanced (CE) 3D GRE T1-weighted images. Qualitative volume changes based on this applied method were compared with experts' readings of conventional pre- and post-CE 2D T1-weighted images. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was performed two to four times in 13 patients with a total combination of 29 time points.
Compared to conventional 2D MR readings, a diagnosis of tumor growth (yes/no) was changed in 5 of 13 patients (38%) at 9 of the 29 combinations of time points (31%) using the 3D-based semi-automatic method. With manual tumor tracings as reference, McNemar's test showed a significant difference between the two methods.
Visual comparison of geometrically corrected, intensity-normalized, and affine-aligned longitudinal 3D images may enable more accurate assessment of qualitative volumetric change in pituitary adenomas than conventional reading of 2D images.
变化检测是监测缓慢演变病理的关键因素。本研究的目的是测试一种应用于垂体大腺瘤纵向 MRI 监测体积变化的半自动方法。
所提出的方法基于对几何校正、配准、强度归一化对比增强（CE）3D GRE T1 加权图像的视觉比较。基于该应用方法的定性体积变化与专家对常规 CE 前后 2D T1 加权图像的阅读进行了比较。13 名患者进行了 2 到 4 次磁共振成像，总共组合了 29 个时间点。
与常规 2D MR 阅读相比，使用基于 3D 的半自动方法，在 29 个时间点的组合中有 9 个（31%），13 名患者中的 5 名（38%）改变了肿瘤生长（是/否）的诊断。以手动肿瘤追踪为参考，McNemar 检验显示两种方法之间存在显著差异。
对几何校正、强度归一化和仿射对齐的纵向 3D 图像进行视觉比较可能比常规阅读 2D 图像更能准确评估垂体腺瘤的定性体积变化。
