AUTHOR=Zhao Wei , Wu Yuzhi , Xu Ya'nan , Sun Yingli , Gao Pan , Tan Mingyu , Ma Weiling , Li Cheng , Jin Liang , Hua Yanqing , Liu Jun , Li Ming 

TITLE=The Potential of Radiomics Nomogram in Non-invasively Prediction of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutation Status and Subtypes in Lung Adenocarcinoma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2019

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2019.01485

DOI=10.3389/fonc.2019.01485

ISSN=2234-943X

ABSTRACT=Purpose: Up to 50% of Asian patients with NSCLC have EGFR gene mutations, indicating that selecting eligible patients for EGFR-TKIs treatments is clinically important. The aim of the study is to develop and validate radiomics-based nomograms, integrating radiomics, CT features and clinical characteristics, to noninvasively predict EGFR mutation status and subtypes.
Materials and Methods: We included 637 patients with lung adenocarcinomas, who performed the EGFR mutations analysis in the current study. The whole dataset was randomly split into a training dataset (n=322) and validation dataset (n=315). A sub-dataset of EGFR-mutant lesions (EGFR mutation in exon 19 and in exon 21) was used to explore the capability of radiomic features for predicting EGFR mutation subtypes. 475 radiomic features were extracted and a radiomics sore (R-score) was constructed by using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression in the training dataset. A radiomics-based nomogram, incorporating clinical characteristics, CT features and R-score was developed in the training dataset and evaluated in the validation dataset. 
Results: The constructed R-scores achieved promising performance on predicting EGFR mutation status and subtypes, with AUCs of 0.694 and 0.708 in two validation datasets respectively. Moreover, the constructed radiomics-based nomograms excelled the R-scores, clinical, CT features alone in terms of predicting EGFR mutation status and subtypes, with AUCs of 0.734 and 0.757 in two validation datasets respectively.
Conclusions: Radiomics-based nomogram, incorporating clinical characteristics, CT features and radiomic features, can noninvasively and efficiently predict the EGFR mutation status and thus potentially fulfill the ultimate purpose of precision medicine. The methodology is a possible promising strategy to predict EGFR mutation subtypes, providing the support of clinical treatment scenario.