Iodine Quantification to Distinguish Clear Cell from Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma at Dual-Energy Multidetector CT: A Multireader Diagnostic Performance Study
Published in Radiology, 2014
This research demonstrates that dual-energy multidetector CT imaging with iodine quantification can effectively differentiate between clear cell and papillary renal cell carcinoma (RCC) subtypes at a single imaging time point. The study involved 88 patients and used a multireader approach to evaluate diagnostic performance.
The key findings showed that a tumor iodine concentration threshold of 0.9 mg/mL achieved excellent diagnostic performance with 98.2% sensitivity, 86.3% specificity, and 95.3% overall accuracy. The study also found significant correlations between tumor iodine concentration and tumor grade for both clear cell and papillary RCC.
This work represents an important contribution to genitourinary imaging by providing a quantitative approach to distinguish RCC subtypes, which has significant clinical implications for patient management and treatment planning. The research was part of a consulting collaboration with researchers from Duke University while I was a PhD student at NCSU. It demonstrates the application of relatively simple statistical methods to medical imaging data, contributing to improved diagnostic accuracy in oncologic imaging.
Recommended citation: Mileto, A., Marin, D., Alfaro-Cordoba, M., Ramirez-Giraldo, J. C., Eusemann, C. D., Scribano, E., Blandino, A., Mazziotti, S., Ascenti, G. (2014). "Iodine Quantification to Distinguish Clear Cell from Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma at Dual-Energy Multidetector CT: A Multireader Diagnostic Performance Study." Radiology. 273(3):813-820.
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