Combination of DCE-MRI and DWI in Predicting the Treatment Effect of Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy in Esophageal Carcinoma

Background. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) is the main treatment for esophageal cancer, but the response to treatment varies from individual to individual. MR imaging methods, such as diffusion-weighted (DW) MRI and the use of dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI, have the potential to provide additional biomarkers that could evaluate the effect of CCRT in patients with esophageal carcinoma. Materials and Methods. Fifty-six patients with esophageal carcinoma, verified by histopathology, underwent MRI examination before and at midtreatment (4th week, radiotherapy 30–40 Gy) using the Siemens 3.0 T MR System. Parameter maps of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and DCE maps of volume transfer constant (Krans), rate contrast (kep), and extracellular fluid space (ve), were computed using a Siemens Company Multimodality Workplace (MMWP) model. Comparison of histogram parameters and their diagnostic performance was determined using the Mann–Whitney U test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results. 56 patient MRI scans were available for analysis at baseline and at the third week, respectively. Pretreatment Krans, pretreatment kep, pretreatment ADC (P<0.05), and during-treatment Krans (P<0.05) and ΔKrans and ΔADC (P<0.05) were significantly different after CCRT. Based on the binary logistic model, the ROC analysis demonstrated that the combined predictors demonstrated a high diagnostic performance with an AUC of 0.939. The sensitivity and specificity were 98.6% and 73.8%, respectively. Conclusion. The combination of DCE and DWI can be used as an early biomarker in the prediction of the effect of CCRT three weeks after treatment in esophageal carcinoma.