The Feasibility of Evaluating Treatment Response of Bone Metastases by Segmenting Tumor Diffusion Volumes to Estimate Total Disease Burden on Whole Body Diffusion-Weighted Imaging

Matthew D. Blackledge¹, Dow-Mu Koh¹, Anwar R. Padhani², James J. Stirling², N J. Taylor², David J. Collins¹, Martin O. Leach¹

There is currently no standard for evaluating response of bone metastases to novel therapeutics, greatly inhibiting pharmaceutical development. In this feasibility study we investigate the role of tumour burden estimates and apparent diffusion coefficients measured using whole body diffusion weighted imaging (WBDWI) for monitoring treatment response. Good correlations are found between final clinical outcome in patients diagnosed with bone metastases and changes in median ADC value and tumour burden, as predicted using semi-automatic segmentation methods. It is concluded that such measurements from WBDWI will provide a useful tool in future clinical trials.