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Surface-Based Falff: A Potential Novel Biomarker for Prediction of Radiation Encephalopathy in Patients With Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma
- Source :
- Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol 15 (2021)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Frontiers Media S.A., 2021.
-
Abstract
- Radiation encephalopathy (RE) is an important potential complication in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) who undergo radiotherapy (RT) that can affect the quality of life. However, a functional imaging biomarker of pre-symptomatic RE has not yet been established. This study aimed to assess radiation-induced gray matter functional alterations and explore fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) as an imaging biomarker for predicting or diagnosing RE in patients with NPC. A total of 60 patients with NPC were examined, 21 in the pre-RT cohort and 39 in the post-RT cohort. Patients in the post-RT cohort were further divided into two subgroups according to the occurrence of RE in follow-up: post-RT non−RE (n = 21) and post-RT REprovedinfollow−up (n = 18). Surface-based and volume-based fALFF were used to detect radiation-induced functional alterations. Functional derived features were then adopted to construct a predictive model for the diagnosis of RE. We observed that surface-based fALFF could sensitively detect radiation-induced functional alterations in the intratemporal brain regions (such as the hippocampus and superior temporal gyrus), as well as the extratemporal regions (such as the insula and prefrontal lobe); however, no significant intergroup differences were observed using volume-based fALFF. No significant correlation between fALFF and radiation dose to the ipsilateral temporal lobe was observed. Support vector machine (SVM) analysis revealed that surface-based fALFF in the bilateral superior temporal gyri and left insula exhibited impressive performance (accuracy = 80.49%) in identifying patients likely to develop RE. We conclude that surface-based fALFF may serve as a sensitive imaging biomarker in the prediction of RE.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1662453X
- Volume :
- 15
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- Frontiers in Neuroscience
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.2143d52ab5d0406eafc0a5f803e8afc7
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.692575