Non-invasive intravoxel incoherent motion MRI in prediction of histopathological response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and survival outcome in osteosarcoma at the time of diagnosis

Background Early prediction of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) is important to aid personalized treatment in osteosarcoma. Diffusion-weighted Intravoxel Incoherent Motion (IVIM) MRI was used to evaluate the predictive value for response to NACT and survival outcome in osteosarcoma. Methods Total fifty-five patients with biopsy-proven osteosarcoma were recruited prospectively, among them 35 patients were further analysed. Patients underwent 3 cycles of NACT (Cisplatin + Doxorubicin) followed by surgery and response adapted adjuvant chemotherapy. Treatment outcomes were histopathological response to NACT (good-response ≥ 50% necrosis and poor-response < 50% necrosis) and survival outcome (event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS)). IVIM MRI was acquired at 1.5T at baseline (t0), after 1-cycle (t1) and after 3-cycles (t2) of NACT. Quantitative IVIM parameters ( D, D*, f & D*.f ) were estimated using advanced state-of-the-art spatial penalty based IVIM analysis method bi-exponential model with total-variation penalty function (BETV) at 3 time-points and histogram analysis was performed. Results Good-responders: Poor-responders ratio was 13 (37%):22 (63%). EFS and OS were 31% and 69% with 16.27 and 25.9 months of median duration respectively. For predicting poor-response to NACT, IVIM parameters showed AUC = 0.87, Sensitivity = 86%, Specificity = 77% at t0, and AUC = 0.96, Sensitivity = 86%, Specificity = 100% at t1. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed smaller tumour volume (HR = 1.002, p = 0.001) higher ADC -25 th -percentile (HR = 0.047, p = 0.005) & D -Mean (HR = 0.1, p = 0.023) and lower D*- Mean (HR = 1.052, p = 0.039) were independent predictors of longer EFS (log-rank p -values: 0.054, 0.0034, 0.0017, 0.0019 respectively) and non-metastatic disease (HR = 4.33, p < 10 –3 ), smaller tumour-volume (HR = 1.001, p = 0.042), lower D* -Mean (HR = 1.045, p = 0.056) and higher D*.f- skewness (HR = 0.544, p = 0.048) were independent predictors of longer OS (log-rank p -values: < 10 –3 , 0.07, < 10 –3 , 0.019 respectively). Conclusion IVIM parameters obtained with a 1.5T scanner along with novel BETV method and their histogram analysis indicating tumour heterogeneity were informative in characterizing NACT response and survival outcome in osteosarcoma.