Methodological considerations on segmenting rhabdomyosarcoma with diffusion-weighted imaging—What can we do better?

PURPOSE: Diffusion-weighted MRI is a promising technique to monitor response to treatment in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma. However, its validation in clinical practice remains challenging. This study aims to investigate how the tumor segmentation strategy can affect the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measured in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A literature review was performed in PubMed using search terms relating to MRI and sarcomas to identify commonly applied segmentation strategies. Seventy-six articles were included, and their presented segmentation methods were evaluated. Commonly reported segmentation strategies were then evaluated on diffusion-weighted imaging of five pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma patients to assess their impact on ADC. RESULTS: We found that studies applied different segmentation strategies to define the shape of the region of interest (ROI)(outline 60%, circular ROI 27%), to define the segmentation volume (2D 44%, multislice 9%, 3D 21%), and to define the segmentation area (excludes edge 7%, excludes other region 19%, specific area 27%, whole tumor 48%). In addition, details of the segmentation strategy are often unreported. When implementing and comparing these strategies on in-house data, we found that excluding necrotic, cystic, and hemorrhagic areas from segmentations resulted in on average 5.6% lower mean ADC. Additionally, the slice location used in 2D segmentation methods could affect ADC by as much as 66%. CONCLUSION: Diffusion-weighted MRI studies in pediatric sarcoma currently employ a variety of segmentation methods. Our study shows that different segmentation strategies can result in vastly different ADC measurements, highlighting the importance to further investigate and standardize segmentation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13244-022-01351-z.