Abstract
Objective
To assess the discriminative power of radiomics of peripheral nerves at 1.5T MRI, using common entrapment neuropathies of the upper limb as a model system of focal nerve injury.
Materials and methods
Radiomics was retrospectively done on peripheral nerve fascicles on T1-weighted 1.5T MRI of 40 patients with diagnosis of mild carpal (n = 25) and cubital tunnel (n = 15) syndrome and of 200 controls. Z-score normalization and Mann–Whitney U test were used to compare features of normal and pathological peripheral nerves. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed.
Results
A total of n = 104 radiomics features were computed for each patient and control. Significant differences between normal and pathological median and ulnar nerves were found in n = 23/104 features (p < 0.001). According to features classification, n = 5/23 features were shape-based, n = 7/23 were first-order features, n = 11/23 features were classified as gray level run length matrix. Nine of the selected features showed an AUC higher that 0.7: minimum AUC of 0.74 (95% CI 0.61–0.89) for sum variance and maximum AUC of 0.90 (95% CI 0.82–0.99) for zone entropy.
Conclusion
Features analysis demonstrated statistically significant differences between normal and pathological nerve. The results suggested that radiomics analysis could assess the median and ulnar nerve inner structure changes due to the loss of the fascicular pattern, intraneural edema, fibrosis or fascicular alterations in mild carpal tunnel and mild cubital tunnel syndromes even when the nerve cross-sectional area does not change.
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Abbreviations
- EN:
-
Entrapment neuropathies
- CTS:
-
Carpal tunnel syndrome
- CuTS:
-
Cubital tunnel syndrome
- AUC:
-
Area under the curve
- CI:
-
Confidence interval
- ROC:
-
Receiver operating characteristic
- glrlm:
-
Gray Level Run Length Matrix
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Acknowledgements
One author has received research grants from the European Society of Musculoskeletal Radiology (ESSR), Young Researchers Grant 2018.
Funding
This study was funded by the European Society of Musculoskeletal Radiology (ESSR),Young Researchers Grant 2018.
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Scientific Guarantor: AT. Data collection and analysis: AT, BB, FV, FR. Manuscript drafting and final approval: all Authors.
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Rossi Federica has received research grants from the European Society of Musculoskeletal Radiology (ESSR), Young Researchers Grant 2018.
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Rossi, F., Bignotti, B., Bianchi, L. et al. Radiomics of peripheral nerves MRI in mild carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome. Radiol med 125, 197–203 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-019-01110-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-019-01110-z