<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><sec id="j_raon-2021-0005_s_005_w2aab3b7c30b1b6b1aab1c15b1Aa"><h3>Background</h3><p>Immunotherapy has become a cornerstone of the modern cancer treatment. It might be crucial to predict its expression non-invasively by imaging. The present study used diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) quantified by whole lesion apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values to elucidate possible associations with programmed cell death ligand 1(PD-L1) expression in head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC).</p></sec><sec id="j_raon-2021-0005_s_006_w2aab3b7c30b1b6b1aab1c15b2Aa"><h3>Patients and methods</h3><p>Overall, 29 patients with primary HNSCC of different localizations were involved in the study. DWI was obtained by using a sequence with b<italic><sub>-</sub></italic>values of 0 and 800 s/mm<sup>2</sup> on a 3 T MRI. ADC values were evaluated with a whole lesion measurement and a histogram approach. PD-L1 expression was estimated on bioptic samples before any form of treatment using 3 scores, tumor positive score (TPS), immune cell score (ICS), and combined positive score (CPS).</p></sec><sec id="j_raon-2021-0005_s_007_w2aab3b7c30b1b6b1aab1c15b3Aa"><h3>Results</h3><p>An inverse correlation between skewness derived from ADC values and ICS was identified (r = -0.38, p = 0.04). ADC<sub>max</sub> tended to correlate with ICS (r = -0.35, p = 0.06). Other ADC parameters did not show any association with the calculated scores.</p></sec><sec id="j_raon-2021-0005_s_008_w2aab3b7c30b1b6b1aab1c15b4Aa"><h3>Conclusions</h3><p>There is a weak association between skewness derived from ADC values and PD-L1 expression in HNSCC, which might not be strong enough to predict PD-L1 expression in clinical routine. Presumably, ADC values are more influenced by complex histopathology compartments, comprising cellular and extracellular aspects of tumors than only of a single subset of tumor associated cells.</p></sec></abstract>

BackgroundImmunotherapy has become a cornerstone of the modern cancer treatment. It might be crucial to predict its expression non-invasively by imaging. The present study used diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) quantified by whole lesion apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values to elucidate possible associations with programmed cell death ligand 1(PD-L1) expression in head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC).Patients and methodsOverall, 29 patients with primary HNSCC of different localizations were involved in the study. DWI was obtained by using a sequence with b-values of 0 and 800 s/mm2 on a 3 T MRI. ADC values were evaluated with a whole lesion measurement and a histogram approach. PD-L1 expression was estimated on bioptic samples before any form of treatment using 3 scores, tumor positive score (TPS), immune cell score (ICS), and combined positive score (CPS).ResultsAn inverse correlation between skewness derived from ADC values and ICS was identified (r = -0.38, p = 0.04). ADCmax tended to correlate with ICS (r = -0.35, p = 0.06). Other ADC parameters did not show any association with the calculated scores.ConclusionsThere is a weak association between skewness derived from ADC values and PD-L1 expression in HNSCC, which might not be strong enough to predict PD-L1 expression in clinical routine. Presumably, ADC values are more influenced by complex histopathology compartments, comprising cellular and extracellular aspects of tumors than only of a single subset of tumor associated cells.

Relationships between apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram analysis parameters and PD-L 1-expression in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas: a preliminary study

Radiology and Oncology

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BackgroundImmunotherapy has become a cornerstone of the modern cancer treatment. It might be crucial to predict its expression non-invasively by imaging. The...

Relationships between apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram analysis parameters and PD-L 1-expression in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas: a preliminary study

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Jan 20, 2021

Page range: 150 - 157

Received: Oct 22, 2020

Accepted: Dec 13, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2021-0005

© 2021 Hans-Jonas Meyer, Anne Kathrin Höhn, Alexey Surov, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.