Intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics model based on abdominal ultrasound for predicting Ki-67 expression in patients with hepatocellular cancer

Hongwei Qian; Zhihong Shen; Difan Zhou; Yanhua Huang

doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.1209111

Intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics model based on abdominal ultrasound for predicting Ki-67 expression in patients with hepatocellular cancer

Front Oncol. 2023 Aug 24:13:1209111. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1209111. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Hongwei Qian^{1

2}, Zhihong Shen^{1

2}, Difan Zhou^{1

2}, Yanhua Huang³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Shaoxing People's Hospital, Shaoxing, China.
² Shaoxing Key Laboratory of Minimally Invasive Abdominal Surgery and Precise Treatment of Tumor, Shaoxing, China.
³ Department of Ultrasound, Shaoxing People's Hospital, Shaoxing, China.

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular cancer (HCC) is one of the most common tumors worldwide, and Ki-67 is highly important in the assessment of HCC. Our study aimed to evaluate the value of ultrasound radiomics based on intratumoral and peritumoral tissues in predicting Ki-67 expression levels in patients with HCC.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of ultrasonic and clinical data from 118 patients diagnosed with HCC through histopathological examination of surgical specimens in our hospital between September 2019 and January 2023. Radiomics features were extracted from ultrasound images of both intratumoral and peritumoral regions. To select the optimal features, we utilized the t-test and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). We compared the area under the curve (AUC) values to determine the most effective modeling method. Subsequently, we developed four models: the intratumoral model, the peritumoral model, combined model #1, and combined model #2.

Results: Of the 118 patients, 64 were confirmed to have high Ki-67 expression while 54 were confirmed to have low Ki-67 expression. The AUC of the intratumoral model was 0.796 (0.649-0.942), and the AUC of the peritumoral model was 0.772 (0.619-0.926). Furthermore, combined model#1 yielded an AUC of 0.870 (0.751-0.989), and the AUC of combined model#2 was 0.762 (0.605-0.918). Among these models, combined model#1 showed the best performance in terms of AUC, accuracy, F1-score, and decision curve analysis (DCA).

Conclusion: We presented an ultrasound radiomics model that utilizes both intratumoral and peritumoral tissue information to accurately predict Ki-67 expression in HCC patients. We believe that incorporating both regions in a proper manner can enhance the diagnostic performance of the prediction model. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to include both regions in the region of interest (ROI) without careful consideration.

Keywords: Ki-67 Antigen; computer assisted diagnosis; hepatocellular cancer; machine learning; radiomics; ultrasonography.

Grants and funding

The work was sponsored by Science and Technology Program Project of Shaoxing (2022A14020) and Health Science and Technology Program Project of Shaoxing (2022KY019). The funder did not influence the analysis or publication.