Metabolic images from Positron Emission Tomography (PET) are used routinely for diagnosis, follow-up or treatment planning purposes of cancer patients. In this study we aimed at determining if radiomic features extracted from ¹⁸F-Fluoro Deoxy Glucose (FDG) PET images could mirror tumor transcriptomics. In this study we analyzed 45 patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer (H&N) that underwent FDG-PET scans at the time of diagnosis and transcriptome analysis using RNAs from both cancer and healthy tissues on microarrays. Association between PET radiomics and transcriptomics was carried out with the Genomica software and a functional annotation was used to associate PET radiomics, gene expression and altered biological pathways. We identified relationships between PET radiomics and genes involved in cell-cycle, disease, DNA repair, extracellular matrix organization, immune system, metabolism or signal transduction pathways, according to the Reactome classification. Our results suggest that these FDG PET radiomic features could be used to infer tissue gene expression and cellular pathway activity in H&N cancers. These observations strengthen the value of radiomics as a promising approach to personalize treatments through targeting tumor-specific molecular processes.

正电子发射断层扫描 (PET) 的代谢图像通常用于癌症患者的诊断、随访或治疗计划。在本研究中，我们旨在确定从¹⁸ F-氟脱氧葡萄糖 (FDG) PET 图像中提取的放射组学特征是否可以反映肿瘤转录组学。在这项研究中，我们分析了 45 名局部晚期头颈癌 (H&N) 患者，这些患者在诊断时接受了 FDG-PET 扫描，并使用微阵列上来自癌症和健康组织的 RNA 进行转录组分析。使用 Genomica 软件进行 PET 放射组学和转录组学之间的关联，并使用功能注释将 PET 放射组学、基因表达和改变的生物途径关联起来。根据 Reactome 分类，我们确定了 PET 放射组学与参与细胞周期、疾病、DNA 修复、细胞外基质组织、免疫系统、代谢或信号转导途径的基因之间的关系。我们的结果表明，这些 FDG PET 放射组学特征可用于推断 H&N 癌症中的组织基因表达和细胞通路活性。这些观察结果增强了放射组学作为一种有希望的通过针对肿瘤特异性分子过程进行个性化治疗的方法的价值。