Can the combination of DWI and T2WI radiomics improve the diagnostic efficiency of cervical squamous cell carcinoma?

Abstract

Background: To investigate the value of MRI multi-sequence imaging model in differentiation of cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC).

Methods: A total of 104 CSCC patients confirmed with pathology were retrospectively enrolled. All patients underwent conventional MRI examination before treatment. The lesions were segmented using ITK-SNAP software manually and radiomics features were extracted by Artificial Intelligence Kit (AK) software. 396 tumor texture features were obtained and then the mRMR and Lasso algorithms were used to reduce the feature dimension. Three models including T2WI model, DWI model and Joint model (combined TWI and DWI) were constructed in training group and evaluated in validation group. and the receiver operator characteristics and calibration curve were used to evaluate the model performance.

Results: The Joint model and T2WI model both showed a better diagnostic efficacy than single DWI model in differentiation of CSCC in training group (Joint model: AUC = 0.841; T2WI model: AUC = 0.804; DWI model: AUC = 0.732) and validation group (Joint model: AUC = 0.822; T2WI model: AUC = 0.791; DWI model: AUC = 0.724). But there was no statistical difference between Joint model and T2WI model by Delong test(P > 0.05).

Conclusions: The study suggested that the conventional T2WI sequence may be more suitable for prognosis evaluation of CSCC, which can provide a potential tool to facilitate the differential diagnosis of low-differentiation and high-differentiation CSCC.

Keywords: Cervical squamous cell carcinoma; Differentiation; Magnetic resonance imaging; Radiomics.