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An MRI-based multi-objective radiomics model predicts lymph node status in patients with rectal cancer

Abdominal Radiology volume 46, pages 1816–1824 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose

To apply a multi-objective radiomics model based on pre-operative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for improving diagnostic accuracy of LN metastasis in rectal cancer patients.

Methods

This study consisted of 91 patients diagnosed with rectal cancer from April 2018 to March 2019. All patients underwent rectal MRI before surgery without any other treatment. Clinical data, subjective radiologist assessments, and radiomic features of LNs were obtained. A total of 1409 radiomic features were extracted from T2WI LN images. Multi-objective optimization with the iterative multi-objective immune algorithm (IMIA) was used to select radiomic features to build prediction models. Predictive performances of radiomic, radiologist, and combined radiomic and radiologist models were assessed for accuracy by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves.

Results

For the radiologist analysis, heterogeneity was the only significant independent predictor of LN status. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the subjective radiologist analysis were 72.09%, 73.81%, and 78.12%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the solitary radiomic model consisting of 10 features were 89.81%, 82.57%, and 87.77%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the combined model, which consisted of 12 radiomic and radiologist features, were 92.23%, 84.69%, and 89.88%, respectively. The combined model had the best prediction performance with an AUC of 0.94.

Conclusions

The multi-objective radiomics model based on T2WI images was very useful in predicting pre-operative LN status in rectal cancer patients.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study has received funding by the Applied Technology Research, the Development Foundation of Harbin City (No. 2016RAQXJ043) and Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital HaiYan Funds (No. JJZD2020-17).

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Automation College, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, Heilongjiang, China

    Jin Li, Yang Zhou & Kuan Luan

  2. Department of Radiology, Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital, Harbin, 150001, Heilongjiang, China

    Yang Zhou & Xinxin Wang

  3. School of Information and Communications Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, Shaanxi, China

    Meijuan Zhou & Xi Chen

Authors
  1. Jin Li
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  2. Yang Zhou
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  3. Xinxin Wang
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  4. Meijuan Zhou
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  6. Kuan Luan
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Correspondence to Kuan Luan.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Ethical approval was obtained by the local institutional review board (Ethical Committee of Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital).

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Cite this article

Li, J., Zhou, Y., Wang, X. et al. An MRI-based multi-objective radiomics model predicts lymph node status in patients with rectal cancer. Abdom Radiol 46, 1816–1824 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00261-020-02863-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00261-020-02863-2

Keywords

  • Rectal cancer
  • Lymph nodes
  • Multi-objective radiomics
  • Magnetic resonance imaging