Radiomics signatures for predicting the Ki-67 level and HER-2 status based on bone metastasis from primary breast cancer

Hongxiao Zhang; Shuxian Niu; Huanhuan Chen; Lihua Wang; Xiaoyu Wang; Yujiao Wu; Jiaxin Shi; Zhuoning Li; Yanjun Hu; Zhiguang Yang; Xiran Jiang

doi:10.3389/fcell.2023.1220320

Radiomics signatures for predicting the Ki-67 level and HER-2 status based on bone metastasis from primary breast cancer

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2024 Jan 8:11:1220320. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2023.1220320. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Hongxiao Zhang^#¹, Shuxian Niu^#¹, Huanhuan Chen^#², Lihua Wang³, Xiaoyu Wang³, Yujiao Wu¹, Jiaxin Shi¹, Zhuoning Li¹, Yanjun Hu⁴, Zhiguang Yang⁵, Xiran Jiang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Intelligent Medicine, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
² Department of Oncology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Cancer Hospital of China Medical University, Liaoning Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
⁴ Department of Medical Imaging, Cancer Hospital of China Medical University, Liaoning Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

This study explores the potential of radiomics to predict the proliferation marker protein Ki-67 levels and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2) status based on MRI images of patients with spinal metastasis from primary breast cancer. A total of 110 patients with pathologically confirmed spinal metastases from primary breast cancer were enrolled between Dec. 2017 and Dec. 2021. All patients underwent T1-weighted contrast-enhanced MRI scans. The PyRadiomics package was used to extract features from the MRI images based on the intraclass correlation coefficient and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. The most predictive features were used to develop the radiomics signature. The Chi-Square test, Fisher's exact test, Student's t-test, and Mann-Whitney U test were used to evaluate the clinical and pathological characteristics between the high- and low-level Ki-67 groups and the HER-2 positive/negative groups. The radiomics models were compared using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity (SEN), and specificity (SPE) were generated as comparison metrics. From the spinal MRI scans, five and two features were identified as the most predictive for the Ki-67 level and HER-2 status, respectively. The developed radiomics signatures generated good prediction performance for the Ki-67 level in the training (AUC = 0.812, 95% CI: 0.710-0.914, SEN = 0.667, SPE = 0.846) and validation (AUC = 0.799, 95% CI: 0.652-0.947, SEN = 0.722, SPE = 0.833) cohorts. Good prediction performance for the HER-2 status was also achieved in the training (AUC = 0.796, 95% CI: 0.686-0.906, SEN = 0.720, SPE = 0.776) and validation (AUC = 0.705, 95% CI: 0.506-0.904, SEN = 0.733, SPE = 0.762) cohorts. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the potential clinical implications of spinal MRI-based radiomics on the prediction of Ki-67 levels and HER-2 status in breast cancer.

Keywords: HER-2; Ki-67; breast cancer; radiomics; spinal metastasis.

Grants and funding

The work was funded by National Key R&D Program of China: BTIT (Grant NO. 2022YFF1202803), and General Program from Department of Education of Liaoning Province (JYTMS20230132).