Radiogenomics in Aerodigestive Tract Cancers

Description:

Aerodigestive tract cancers are common malignancies. These cancers were ranked to be top-ten cancer-related deaths in Taiwan. Although many new target therapies and immunotherapies have emerged, many of the treatment eventually fail. For example, a 30-40% failure rate has been reported for target therapy, and, even higher for immune checkpoint inhibitors. A reliable model to more accurately predict treatment response and survival is warranted. The radiomic features extracted from F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) can be used to figure tumor biology such as metabolome and heterogeneity. It can therefore be used to predict treatment response and individual survival. On the other hand, genomic data derived from next-generation sequencing (NGS) can interrogate the genetic alteration of cancer cells. It can be used to feature genetic identification of the tumor and can also be used to identify target genes. However, both modalities have their weakness; a combination of the two may devise a more powerful predictive model for more precise clinical decision. The investigators plan to recruit patients aged at least 20-year with the diagnosis of aerodigestive tract cancers for radiogenomic study. Our previous studies have found that radiomic features derived from 18F-FDG PET can predict treatment response and survival in patients with esophageal cancer treated with tri-modality method. The investigators also discovered that radiomics could predict survival in patients with EGFR-mutated lung adenocarcinoma treated with target therapy. In addition, our study results showed that the level of PD-L1 expression is associated with radiomics as well. The investigators plan to add genomic data into radiomics and interrogate cancers from different aspects. The investigators seek to devise a more precise model to predict the treatment response and survival in patients with aerodigestive tract cancers.