European Journal of Radiology 84 (2015) 350–359 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect European Journal of Radiology j ourna l h o mepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejrad Editorial Musings Standardized perfusion value of the esophageal carcinoma and its correlation with quantitative CT perfusion parameter values A. Djuric-Stefanovic a,b,∗,1 , Dj. Saranovic a,b,2 , D. Sobic-Saranovic a,c,3 , D. Masulovic a,b,4 , V. Artiko a,c,5 a Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia b Unit of Digestive Radiology (First University Surgical Clinic), Center of Radiology and MR, Clinical Center of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia c Center of Nuclear Medicine, Clinical Center of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 28 August 2014 Received in revised form 15 November 2014 Accepted 5 December 2014 Keywords: CT perfusion Esophageal carcinoma Deconvolution Standardized perfusion value a b s t r a c t Purpose: Standardized perfusion value (SPV) is a universal indicator of tissue perfusion, normalized to the whole-body perfusion, which was proposed to simplify, unify and allow the interchangeability among the perfusion measurements and comparison between the tumor perfusion and metabolism. The aims of our study were to assess the standardized perfusion value (SPV) of the esophageal carcinoma, and its correlation with quantitative CT perfusion measurements: blood flow (BF), blood volume (BV), mean transit time (MTT) and permeability surface area product (PS) of the same tumor volume samples, which were obtained by deconvolution-based CT perfusion analysis. Methods: Forty CT perfusion studies of the esophageal cancer were analyzed, using the commercial deconvolution-based CT perfusion software (Perfusion 3.0, GE Healthcare). The SPV of the esophageal tumor and neighboring skeletal muscle were correlated with the corresponding mean tumor and muscle quantitative CT perfusion parameter values, using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (r S ). Results: Median SPV of the esophageal carcinoma (7.1; range: 2.8–13.4) significantly differed from the SPV of the skeletal muscle (median: 1.0; range: 0.4–2.4), (Z = -5.511, p < 0.001). The cut-off value of the SPV of 2.5 enabled discrimination of esophageal cancer from the skeletal muscle with sensitivity and specificity of 100%. SPV of the esophageal carcinoma significantly correlated with corresponding tumor BF (r S = 0.484, p = 0.002), BV (r S = 0.637, p < 0.001) and PS (r S = 0.432, p = 0.005), and SPV of the skeletal muscle significantly correlated with corresponding muscle BF (r S = 0.573, p < 0.001), BV (r S = 0.849, p < 0.001) and PS (r S = 0.761, p < 0.001). Conclusions: We presented a database of the SPV for the esophageal cancer and proved that SPV of the esophageal neoplasm significantly differs from the SPV of the skeletal muscle, which represented a sample of healthy tissue. The SPV was validated against quantitative CT perfusion measurements and statistically significant correlation was proved. © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. ∗ Corresponding author Radiologist; Associate Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia; First University Surgical Clinic- Unit of Digestive Radiology, Center of Radiology and MR, Clinical Center of Serbia, Koste Todorovica 6, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia. Tel.: +381 11 3663746; fax: +381 11 3031830. E-mail addresses: avstefan@eunet.rs (A. Djuric-Stefanovic), crvzve4@gmail.com (Dj. Saranovic), dsobic2@gmail.com (D. Sobic-Saranovic), draganmasulovic@yahoo.com (D. Masulovic), veraart@beotel.rs (V. Artiko). 1 Radiologist; Associate Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia 2 Radiologist; Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia 3 Specialist of Nuclear Medicine; Professor of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia 4 Radiologist; Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia 5 Specialist of Nuclear Medicine; Professor of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrad.2014.12.004 0720-048X/© 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.