Multimodal wavelet embedding representation for data combination (MaWERiC): integrating magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy for prostate cancer detection

Recently, both Magnetic Resonance (MR) Imaging (MRI) and Spectroscopy (MRS) have emerged as promising tools for detection of prostate cancer (CaP). However, due to the inherent dimensionality differences in MR imaging and spectral information, quantitative integration of T2 weighted MRI (T2w MRI) and MRS for improved CaP detection has been a major challenge. In this paper, we present a novel computerized decision support system called multimodal wavelet embedding representation for data combination (MaWERiC) that employs, (i) wavelet theory to extract 171 Haar wavelet features from MRS and 54 Gabor features from T2w MRI, (ii) dimensionality reduction to individually project wavelet features from MRS and T2w MRI into a common reduced Eigen vector space, and (iii), a random forest classifier for automated prostate cancer detection on a per voxel basis from combined 1.5 T in vivo MRI and MRS. A total of 36 1.5T endorectal in vivo T2w MRI and MRS patient studies were evaluated per voxel by MaWERiC using a three-fold cross validation approach over 25 iterations. Ground truth for evaluation of results was obtained by an expert radiologist annotations of prostate cancer on a per voxel basis who compared each MRI section with corresponding ex vivo wholemount histology sections with the disease extent mapped out on histology. Results suggest that MaWERiC based MRS T2w meta-classifier (mean AUC, mu=0.89 +/- 0.02) significantly outperformed (i) a T2w MRI (using wavelet texture features) classifier (mu=0.55 +/- 0.02), (ii) a MRS (using metabolite ratios) classifier (mu=0.77 +/- 0.03), (iii) a decision fusion classifier obtained by combining individual T2w MRI and MRS classifier outputs (mu=0.85 +/- 0.03), and (iv) a data combination method involving a combination of metabolic MRS and MR signal intensity features (mu=0.66 +/- 0.02). Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.