Investigation of clear cell renal cell carcinoma grades using diffusion-relaxation correlation spectroscopic imaging with optimized spatial-spectrum analysis

Abstract Objectives To differentiate high-grade from low-grade clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) using diffusion-relaxation correlation spectroscopic imaging (DR-CSI) spectra in an equal separating analysis. Methods Eighty patients with 86 pathologically confirmed ccRCCs who underwent DR-CSI were enrolled. Two radiologists delineated the region of interest. The spectrum was derived based on DR-CSI and was further segmented into multiple equal subregions from 2*2 to 9*9. The agreement between the 2 radiologists was assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Logistic regression was used to establish the regression model for differentiation, and 5-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate its accuracy. McNemar’s test was used to compare the diagnostic performance between equipartition models and the traditional parameters, including the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and T2 value. Results The inter-reader agreement decreased as the divisions in the equipartition model increased (overall ICC ranged from 0.859 to 0.920). The accuracy increased from the 2*2 to 9*9 equipartition model (0.68 for 2*2, 0.69 for 3*3 and 4*4, 0.70 for 5*5, 0.71 for 6*6, 0.78 for 7*7, and 0.75 for 8*8 and 9*9). The equipartition models with divisions >7*7 were significantly better than ADC and T2 (vs ADC: P = .002-.008; vs T2: P = .001-.004). Conclusions The equipartition method has the potential to analyse the DR-CSI spectrum and discriminate between low-grade and high-grade ccRCC. Advances in knowledge The evaluation of DR-CSI relies on prior knowledge, and how to assess the spectrum derived from DR-CSI without prior knowledge has not been well studied.