A preliminary study of the local biomechanical environment of liver tumors in vivo. Issue 4 (28th February 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ma, Shengyuan; Zhu, Mo; Xia, Xiaolong; Guo, Liang; Genin, Guy M.; Sacks, Michael S.; Gao, Mingyuan; Mutic, Sasa; Hu, Yanle; Hu, Chun‐hong; Feng, Yuan
• Is Part Of: Medical physics. Volume 46:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 1728
• Page End: 1739
• Publication Date: 2019-02-28
• Subjects: biomechanics -- displacement -- Lagrangian strain -- liver cancer -- MR tagging; Medical physics -- Periodicals; Medical physics; Geneeskunde; Natuurkunde; Toepassingen; Biophysics; Periodicals; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 610.153
• DOI: 10.1002/mp.13434
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0094-2405

Abstract

Abstract : Purpose: Biomechanical properties can be used as biomarkers to diagnose tumors, monitor tumor development, and evaluate treatment efficacy. The purpose of this preliminary study is to characterize the biomechanical environment of two typical liver tumors, hemangiomas (HEMs) and hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs), and to investigate the potential of using strain metrics as biomarkers for tumor diagnosis, based on a limited clinical dataset. Methods: Magnetic resonance (MR) tagging was used to quantify the motion and deformation of the two types of liver tumors. Displacements of the tumors arising from a heartbeat were measured over one cardiac cycle. Local biomechanical conditions of the tumors were characterized by estimating two principal strains ( ε 1 and ε 2 ) and an octahedral shear strain ( ε soct ) of the tumor and its peripheral region. Biomechanical conditions of the tumors were compared with those of the arbitrarily selected regions from healthy volunteers. Results: We observed that the HCCs had significantly smaller strain values compared to their peripheral tissues. However, the HEMs did not have significantly different strains from those of the peripheral tissues, and were similar to healthy liver regions. The sensitivity of using ε 1, ε 2, and ε soct to diagnose HCC were all 1, while the sensitivity of using ε 1, ε 2, and ε soct to diagnose HEM were 0.67, 0.17, and 0.67, respectively. Conclusions: Lagrangian strain metrics provide insight into the biomechanical conditions of certain liver tumors in the human body and may provide another perspective for tumor characterization and diagnosis.