Nonenhanced MRI-based radiomics model for preoperative prediction of nonperfused volume ratio for high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation of uterine leiomyomas

Abstract

Objectives: To develop and assess nonenhanced MRI-based radiomics model for the preoperative prediction of nonperfused volume (NPV) ratio of uterine leiomyomas after high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment. Methods: Two hundred and five patients with uterine leiomyomas treated by HIFU were enrolled and allocated to training (N =164) and testing cohorts (N = 41). Pyradiomics was used to extract radiomics features from T2-weighted images and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) map generated from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). The clinico-radiological model, radiomics model, and radiomics-clinical model which combined the selected radiomics features and clinical parameters were used to predict technical outcomes determined by NPV ratios where three classification groups were created (NPV ratio ≤ 50%, 50–80% or ≥ 80%). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, area under the curve (AUC), and calibration and decision curve analyses were performed to illustrate the prediction performance and clinical usefulness of model in the training and testing cohorts. Results: The multi-parametric MRI-based radiomics model outperformed T2-weighted imaging (T2WI)-based radiomics model, which achieved an average AUC of 0.769 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.701–0.842), and showed satisfactory prediction performance for NPV ratio classification. The radiomics-clinical model demonstrated best prediction performance for HIFU treatment outcome, with an average AUC of 0.802 (95% CI, 0.796–0.850) and an accuracy of 0.762 (95% CI, 0.698–0.815) in the testing cohort, compared to the clinico-radiological and radiomics models. The decision curve also indicated favorable clinical usefulness of the radiomics-clinical model. Conclusions: Nonenhanced MRI-based radiomics has potential in the preoperative prediction of NPV ratio for HIFU ablation of uterine leiomyomas.