Radiomic features predict Ki-67 expression level and survival in lower grade gliomas

To investigate the radiomic features associated with Ki-67 expression in lower grade gliomas and assess the prognostic values of these features. Patients with lower grade gliomas (n = 117) were randomly assigned into the training (n = 78) and validation (n = 39) sets. A total of 431 radiological features were extracted from each patient. Differential radiological features between the low and high Ki-67 expression groups were screened by significance analysis of microarrays. Then, generalized linear analysis was performed to select features that could predict the Ki-67 expression level. Predictive efficiencies were further evaluated in the validation set. Cox regression analysis was performed to investigate the prognostic values of Ki-67 expression level and Ki-67-related radiological features. A group of nine radiological features were screened for prediction of Ki-67 expression status; these achieved accuracies of 83.3% and 88.6% (areas under the curves, 0.91 and 0.93) in the training and validation sets, respectively. Of these features, only spherical disproportion (SD) was found to be a prognostic factor. Patients in the high SD group exhibited worse outcomes in the whole cohort (overall survival, p < 0.0001; progression-free survival, p < 0.0001). Ki-67 expression level and SD were independent prognostic factors in the multivariate Cox regression analysis. This study identified a radiomic signature for prediction of Ki-67 expression level as well as a prognostic radiological feature in patients with lower grade gliomas.