Can Diffusion Weighted MRI Assess Early Response of Lymphadenopathy to Induction Chemotherapy in Nasopharyngeal Cancer: A Heterogeneity Analysis Approach

Abstract

Induction chemotherapy is an effective way to control subclinical metastasis in locally-advanced nasopharyngeal cancer patients. Diffusion-weighted MRI is a noninvasive imaging technique allowing some degree of tissue characterization by showing and quantifying molecular diffusion. Histogram analysis on ADC map could be carried out to reveal physiological alterations early after IC. For this purpose, several quantitative metrics from ADC-map were explored to obtain the most accurate feature(s) as potential predictive biomarker for early response of the lymphnode to IC. If the outcome can be predicted at an early stage of the treatment, the patient could be spared from unnecessary treatment toxicity.