Abstract:
Objective To investigate the value of MRI DWI-based radiomics models for evaluating the treatment response in osteosarcoma after neoadjuvant chemoherapy.
Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on the medical records and imaging data of 41 patients with osteosarcoma (26 males and 15 females; aged (22.0±11.0) years, range of 11–49 years) who underwent MRI examinations before and after receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and confirmed by postoperative histopathological examinations at the Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University from June 2015 to November 2017. In accordance with the postoperative histopathological examination results, patients with a tumor tissue necrosis rate of ≥90% were included in the good-efficacy group, and those with a necrosis rate of <90% were included in the poor-efficacy group. The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC, denoted as ADC0, ADC1, and ADC2) were measured in all patients before neoadjuvant chemotherapy, within 5 days after the end of the first stage of chemotherapy, and after the completion of the entire chemotherapy. The differences in ADC were compared between the two groups. The region of interest of the lesion was manually delineated on DWI (b=1 000 s/mm2) and ADC images after the end of the first stage of chemotherapy, and the radiomics features were extracted. Data were divided into training set and validation set by using random grouping at 6∶4. The SMOTE algorithm was used to expand the data on the training set. The variance threshold, SelectKBest, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm were used to screen the radiomics features. A radiomics model was constructed using a logistic regression classifier. Independent sample t-test or Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare the two groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the predictive efficacy of traditional imaging (ADC) and radiomics models on the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for osteosarcoma.
Results A total of 10 and 31 cases were included in the good-efficacy and poor-efficacy groups, respectively. No statistically significant difference was found in the ADC0 value between the two groups ((0.95±0.05)×10−3 mm2/s vs. (1.05±0.05)×10−3 mm2/s, t=1.14, P>0.05)). The values of ADC1 and ADC2 in the good-efficacy group were higher than those in the poor-efficacy group, with statistical significance ((1.44±0.10)×10−3 mm2/s vs. (1.10±0.06)×10−3 mm2/s, t=−2.92, P<0.05; 1.68 (1.55, 1.85)×10−3 mm2/s vs. (1.33±0.06)×10−3 mm2/s, Z=−2.61, P<0.01). ROC curve analysis showed that when ADC1 ≥1.34×10−3 mm2/s, the sensitivity for evaluating the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in osteosarcoma was 80%, the specificity was 81%, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.797 (95%CI: 0.629–0.965). When ADC2 ≥1.51×10−3 mm2/s, the sensitivity for evaluating the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in osteosarcoma was 90%, the specificity was 71%, and the AUC was 0.777 (95%CI: 0.588–0.967). A total of 1 409 radiomics features were extracted from the DWI and ADC images after the end of the first stage of chemotherapy. They were randomly divided into training set and validation set at a ratio of 6∶4 (24 (good efficacy: 6, poor efficacy: 18)∶17 (good efficacy: 4, poor efficacy: 13)). The training set data were expanded to 70 (good efficacy: 20, poor efficacy: 50). After the radiomics features were screened, five optimal radiomics features were ultimately obtained, including InterquartileRange, Skewness, Uniformity, Median, and Maximum. Logistic regression classifier was used to construct a radiomics model. The ROC curves showed that in the training set, the AUC of the model for predicting the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in osteosarcoma was 0.881 (95%CI: 0.811–0.942), with sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 74%. Meanwhile, in the validation set, the AUC was 0.769 (95%CI: 0.515–0.933), with sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 69%.
Conclusion The radiomics model based on MRI DWI outperforms the traditional imaging (ADC) in evaluating the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for osteosarcoma, showing great potential in clinical applications.