Combining Prostate Cancer Region Predictions from MALDI Spectra Processing and Texture Analysis

We present a three-step method to predict Prostate cancer (PCa) regions on biopsy tissue samples based on high confidence, low resolution PCa regions marked by a pathologist. First, we apply a texture analysis technique on a high magnification optical image to predict PCa regions on an adjacent tissue slice. Second, we design a prediction model for the same purpose using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) tissue imaging data from the adjacent slice. Finally, we fuse those two results to obtain the PCa regions that will assist MALDI imaging biomarker identification. Experiment results show that the texture analysis based prediction is sensitive (sen. 87.45%) but not specific (spe. 75%), and the prediction based on the MALDI spectra data is specific (spe. 100%) but less sensitive (sen. 50.98%). By combining those two results, a much better prediction for PCa regions on the adjacent slice can be achieved (sen. 80.39%, spe. 93.09%).