Novel Advances in Qualitative Diagnostic Imaging for Decision Making in Multidisciplinary Treatment for Advanced Esophageal Cancer

Abstract

Background: Recently, neoadjuvant therapy and the succeeding surgery for advanced esophageal cancer have been evaluated. In particular, the response to the therapy has been found to affect surgical outcomes, and thus a precise evaluation of treatment effect is important for this strategy. In this study, articles on qualitative diagnostic modalities to evaluate tumor activities were reviewed, and the diagnostic indices were examined. Methods: For prediction of the effect, perfusion CT and diffusion MRI were estimated. For the histological response evaluation, perfusion CT, diffusion-MRI, and FDG-PET were estimated. For downstaging evaluation of T4, tissue-selective image reconstruction using enhanced CT was estimated and diagnostic indices were reviewed. Results: The prediction of the effect using perfusion CT with ‘pre CRT blood flow’ and diffusion MRI with ‘pre CRT ADC value’; the estimation of the histological response using perfusion CT with ‘post CRT blood flow reduction, using diffusion MRI with ‘post CRT ADC increasing’, and using FDG-PET with ‘post CRT SUV reduction’; and the downstaging evaluation of T4 using CT image reconstruction with ‘fibrous changed layer’ were performed well, respectively. Conclusions: Qualitative imaging modalities for prediction or response evaluation of neoadjuvant therapy for progressive esophageal cancer were useful for the decision making of the treatment strategy of the multidisciplinary treatment.