The aim was to determine whether the dual-energy CT radiomics model derived from an iodine map (IM) has incremental diagnostic value for the model based on 120-kV equivalent mixed images (120 kVp) in preoperative restaging of serosal invasion with locally advanced gastric cancer (LAGC) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).
A total of 155 patients (110 in the training cohort and 45 in the testing cohort) with LAGC who had standard NAC before surgery were retrospectively enrolled. All CT images were analyzed by two radiologists for manual classification. Volumes of interests (VOIs) were delineated semi-automatically, and 1,226 radiomics features were extracted from every segmented lesion in both IM and 120 kVp images, respectively. Spearman’s correlation analysis and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) penalized logistic regression were implemented for filtering unstable and redundant features and screening out vital features. Two predictive models (120 kVp and IM-120 kVp) based on 120 kVp selected features only and 120 kVp combined with IM selected features were established by multivariate logistic regression analysis. We then build a combination model (ComModel) developed with IM-120 kVp signature and ycT. The performance of these three models and manual classification were evaluated and compared.
Three radiomics models showed great predictive accuracy and performance in both the training and testing cohorts (ComModel: AUC: training, 0.953, testing, 0.914; IM-120 kVp: AUC: training, 0.953, testing, 0.879; 120 kVp: AUC: training, 0.940, testing, 0.831). All these models showed higher diagnostic accuracy (ComModel: 88.9%, IM-120 kVp: 84.4%, 120 kVp: 80.0%) than manual classification (68.9%) in the testing group. ComModel and IM-120 kVp model had better performances than manual classification both in the training (both p<0.001) and testing cohorts (p<0.001 and p=0.034, respectively).
Dual-energy CT-based radiomics models demonstrated convincible diagnostic performance in differentiating serosal invasion in preoperative restaging for LAGC. The radiomics features derived from IM showed great potential for improving the diagnostic capability.