CT texture features are associated with overall survival in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma – a quantitative analysis

BACKGROUND To assess whether CT-derived texture features predict survival in patients undergoing resection for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). METHODS Thirty patients with pre-operative CT from 2007 to 2012 for PDAC were included. Tumor size and five texture features namely uniformity, entropy, dissimilarity, correlation, and inverse difference normalized were calculated. Mann-Whitney rank sum test was used to compare tumor with normal pancreas. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis, Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier tests were used to assess association of texture features with overall survival (OS). RESULTS Uniformity (p < 0.001), entropy (p = 0.009), correlation (p < 0.001), and mean intensity (p < 0.001) were significantly different in tumor regions compared to normal pancreas. Tumor dissimilarity (p = 0.045) and inverse difference normalized (p = 0.046) were associated with OS whereas tumor intensity (p = 0.366), tumor size (p = 0.611) and other textural features including uniformity (p = 0.334), entropy (p = 0.330) and correlation (p = 0.068) were not associated with OS. CONCLUSION CT-derived PDAC texture features of dissimilarity and inverse difference normalized are promising prognostic imaging biomarkers of OS for patients undergoing curative intent surgical resection.