Ct radiomic features of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (panNEN) are robust against delineation uncertainty

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of CT delineation uncertainty of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (panNEN) on Radiomic features (RF).

Methods: Thirty-one previously operated patients were considered. Three expert radiologists contoured panNEN lesions on pre-surgical high-resolution contrast-enhanced CT images and contours were transferred onto pre-contrast CT. Volume agreement was quantified by the DICE index. After images resampling and re-binning, 69 RF were extracted and the impact of inter-observer variability was assessed by Intra-Class Correlation (ICC): ICC > 0.80 was considered as a threshold for "very high" inter-observer agreement.

Results: The median volume was 1.3 cc (range: 0.2-110 cc); a satisfactory inter-observer volume agreement was found (mean DICE = 0.78). Only 4 RF showed ICC < 0.80 (0.48-0.73), including asphericity and three RFs (of five) of the neighborhood intensity difference matrix (NID).

Conclusions: The impact of inter-observer variability in delineating panNEN on RF was minimum, with the exception of the NID family and asphericity, showing a moderate agreement. These results support the feasibility of studies aiming to assess CT radiomic biomarkers for panNEN.

Keywords: CT imaging; Inter-observer variability; Neuroendocrine tumors; Pancreatic tumors; Radiomics.