Prediction of survival for patients with advanced colorectal cancer using 1H High‐resolution magic angle spinning nuclear MR spectroscopy

Purpose To evaluate whether the metabolic profiles of colorectal cancer specimens can be used for prediction of survival. Materials and Methods The metabolic profiles of colorectal cancer tissues were determined using the high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique (16.4 T). HR MAS analysis was performed for 52 tissues taken from patients classified as survivors [22] and nonsurvivors (30). Quantitative analysis was performed for each spectrum. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the potential to predict patient survival over 5.5 years. Results Analysis of 1H NMR spectra led to the identification and quantitative analysis of 30 metabolites. A significant increase in the Tau/Gly and Tau/MI ratios were associated with long-term survival (P = 0.004 and P = 0.003, respectively). ROC analysis indicated that the Tau/MI ratio had the best predictive value for survival (sensitivity 64.7% and specificity 100%). Good predictive value of survival was found for Tau/Gly ratio (sensitivity 63.6% and specificity 96.3%). Moreover, the Glu/Gln metabolic ratio with a cutoff level of 1.74 was predictive of survival with a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 85.7%. Conclusion Our results indicate that HR MAS spectroscopy is potentially useful for survival prediction in advanced colorectal cancer. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2015;41:1669–1674. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.