A tool for the extraction of new disease biomarkers from ex vivo and in vivo data

Abstract

Motivation and Objectives Recent studies have demonstrated the correlation among features of diseases obtained from ex vivo and in vivo Molecular Imaging (MI) studies (e.g. Genomics and Positron Emission Tomography, PET, Strauss et al., 2008; Genomics and Computerized Tomography, CT, Segal et al., 2007), opening a new role to non invasive clinical MI technologies in the current approach of personalized medicine. At present, proper databases and statistical methodologies are on hand to deal with the different modalities of ex vivo and in vivo MI data but tools for the extraction of new disease biomarkers are still not available for the purpose of clinicians. The main interest of clinical specialists is in finding biomarkers of disease with diagnostic and prognostic values, and this can be performed with an interdisciplinary approach offered by ex vivo and in vivo MI and then translated into the clinical environment. Aim of this work was the development of a software tool (“cOuch” Correlative and Collaborative Touch System) (Castiglioni et al., 2011) designed to be used by clinicians to find new diagnostic/ prognostic biomarkers of disease from the comparison of ex vivo and in vivo data of patients. In this work, as representative example, “cOuch” has been applied to assess the prognostic and diagnostic value of the Standardized Uptake Value (SUV, Graham et al., 2000), a parameter of regional metabolic uptake measured by PET and 18F-labeled fluorodeoxiglucouse for breast cancer lesions.