Background
Twenty‐five percent of rectal adenocarcinoma patients achieve pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemoradiation and could avoid proctectomy. However, pretreatment clinical or imaging markers are lacking in predicting response to chemoradiation. Radiomic texture features from MRI have recently been associated with therapeutic response in other cancers.
Purpose
To construct a radiomics texture model based on pretreatment MRI for identifying patients who will achieve pCR to neoadjuvant chemoradiation in rectal cancer, including validation across multiple scanners and sites.
Study Type
Retrospective.
Subjects
In all, 104 rectal cancer patients staged with MRI prior to long‐course chemoradiation followed by proctectomy; curated from three institutions.
Field Strength/Sequence
1.5T–3.0T, axial higher resolution T2‐weighted turbo spin echo sequence.
Assessment
Pathologic response was graded on postsurgical specimens. In total, 764 radiomic features were extracted from single‐slice sections of rectal tumors on processed pretreatment T2‐weighted MRI.
Statistical Tests
Three feature selection schemes were compared for identifying radiomic texture descriptors associated with pCR via a discovery cohort (one site, N = 60, cross‐validation). The top‐selected radiomic texture features were used to train and validate a random forest classifier model for pretreatment identification of pCR (two external sites, N = 44). Model performance was evaluated via area under the curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.
Results
Laws kernel responses and gradient organization features were most associated with pCR (P ≤ 0.01); as well as being commonly identified across all feature selection schemes. The radiomics model yielded a discovery AUC of 0.699 ± 0.076 and a hold‐out validation AUC of 0.712 with 70.5% accuracy (70.0% sensitivity, 70.6% specificity) in identifying pCR. Radiomic texture features were resilient to variations in magnetic field strength as well as being consistent between two different expert annotations. Univariate analysis revealed no significant associations of baseline clinicopathologic or MRI findings with pCR (P = 0.07–0.96).
Data Conclusion
Radiomic texture features from pretreatment MRIs may enable early identification of potential pCR to neoadjuvant chemoradiation, as well as generalize across sites.
Level of Evidence
3
Technical Efficacy Stage
2
The unique and robust methodology in this trial produced an assessment tool that was feasible for raters to use when assessing videotaped laparoscopic right hemicolectomies. The potential applications for this new tool are widespread, including both training and evaluation of competence at the attending level. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A369, http://links.lww.com/DCR/A370, http://links.lww.com/DCR/A371.
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