PET/CT-based radiomics of mass-forming intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma improves prediction of pathology data and survival

Abstract

Purpose: Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHC) is an aggressive disease with few reliable preoperative biomarkers. This study aims to elucidate if radiomics extracted from preoperative [18F]FDG PET/CT may grant a non-invasive biological characterization of IHC and predict outcome after complete resection of the tumor.

Methods: All patients preoperatively imaged by [18F]FDG PET/CT who underwent hepatectomy for mass-forming IHC in the period 2010-2019 were retrospectively evaluated. On PET images, manual slice-by-slice segmentation of IHC was performed (Tumor-VOI). A 5-mm margin region was semi-automatically generated around the tumor (Margin-VOI). Textural analysis was performed using the LifeX software. Analyzed outcomes included tumor grading (G3 vs. G1-2), microvascular invasion (MVI), overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS). The performances of the combined clinical-radiomic models were compared with those of standard clinical models.

Results: Overall, 74 patients (40 females, median age 68 years) were included. Considering tumor grading and MVI, the models combining the clinical data and radiomics of the Tumor-VOI had better performances than the clinical ones (AUC = 0.78 vs. 0.72 for grading; 0.87 vs. 0.78 for MVI). The inclusion into the models of radiomics of the Margin-VOI further improved the prediction of grading (AUC = 0.83), but not of MVI. Considering OS and PFS, the models including the preoperative clinical data and radiomics of the Tumor-VOI and Margin-VOI had better performances than the pure clinical ones (C-index = 0.81 vs. 0.76 for OS; 0.81 vs. 0.72 for PFS) and similar to the models including the pathology and postoperative data (C-index = 0.81 for OS; 0.79 for PFS). No model retained the standard SUV measures.

Conclusion: The PET-based radiomics of IHC can predict pathology data and allow a reliable preoperative evaluation of prognosis. The radiomics of both the tumoral and peritumoral areas had clinical relevance. The combined clinical-radiomic models outperformed the pure preoperative clinical ones and achieved performances non-inferior to the postoperative models.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma; Prognosis; Radiomics; Texture analysis; [18F]FDG PET/CT.