Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Volumetric tumor measurement adds no clear benefit over manual checks
By Nell, Esther et al.·Published in Veterinary radiology & ultrasound : the official journal of the American College of Veterinary Radiology and the International Veterinary Radiology Association·2020·Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Volumetric tumor response assessment is inefficient without overt clinical benefit compared to conventional, manual veterinary response assessment in canine nasal tumors.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 22 dogs with nasal tumors underwent radiation therapy, and their tumor sizes were measured using two different methods: a manual approach and a semi-automated one. The study found that the manual method was quicker and provided a good estimate of tumor response, while the automated method was less reliable and not helpful for these types of tumors. Ultimately, the manual assessment was preferred for its speed, even though it tended to underestimate the tumor size. This means that for dogs with nasal tumors, a quick manual evaluation can still be effective in monitoring treatment response.
People also search for: dog nasal tumor treatment · canine radiation therapy response · how to assess dog tumor size
Abstract
Accurate assessment of tumor response to therapy is critical in guiding management of veterinary oncology patients and is most commonly performed using response evaluation criteria in solid tumors criteria. This process can be time consuming and have high intra- and interobserver variability. The primary aim of this serial measurements, secondary analysis study was to compare manual linear tumor response assessment to semi-automated, contoured response assessment in canine nasal tumors. The secondary objective was to determine if tumor measurements or clinical characteristics, such as stage, would correlate to progression-free interval. Three investigators evaluated paired CT scans of skulls of 22 dogs with nasal tumors obtained prior to and following radiation therapy. The automatically generated tumor volumes were not useful for canine nasal tumors in this study, characterized by poor intraobserver agreement between automatically generated contours and hand-adjusted contours. The radiologist's manual linear method of determining response evaluation criteria in solid tumors categorization and tumor volume is significantly faster (P < .0001) but significantly underestimates nasal tumor volume (P < .05) when compared to a contour-based method. Interobserver agreement was greater for volume determination using the contour-based method when compared to response evaluation criteria in solid tumors categorization utilizing the same method. However, response evaluation criteria in solid tumors categorization and percentage volume change were strongly correlated, providing validity to response evaluation criteria in solid tumors as a rapid method of tumor response assessment for canine nasal tumors. No clinical characteristics or tumor measurements were significantly associated with progression-free interval.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32702179/