Dual-Energy Computed Tomography-Based Radiomics to Predict Peritoneal Metastasis in Gastric Cancer

Objective To develop and validate a dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) derived radiomics model to predict peritoneal metastasis (PM) in patients with gastric cancer (GC). Methods This retrospective study recruited 239 GC (non-PM = 174, PM = 65) patients with histopathological confirmation for peritoneal status from January 2015 to December 2019. All patients were randomly divided into a training cohort (n = 160) and a testing cohort (n = 79). Standardized iodine-uptake (IU) images and 120-kV-equivalent mixed images (simulating conventional CT images) from portal-venous and delayed phases were used for analysis. Two regions of interest (ROIs) including the peritoneal area and the primary tumor were independently delineated. Subsequently, 1691 and 1226 radiomics features were extracted from the peritoneal area and the primary tumor from IU and mixed images on each phase. Boruta and Spearman correlation analysis were used for feature selection. Three radiomics models were established, including the R_IU model for IU images, the R_MIX model for mixed images and the combined radiomics model (the R_comb model). Random forest was used to tune the optimal radiomics model. The performance of the clinical model and human experts to assess PM was also recorded. Results Fourteen and three radiomics features with low redundancy and high importance were extracted from the IU and mixed images, respectively. The R_IU model showed significantly better performance to predict PM than the R_MIX model in the training cohort (AUC, 0.981 vs. 0.917, p = 0.034). No improvement was observed in the R_comb model (AUC = 0.967). The R_IU model was the optimal radiomics model which showed no overfitting in the testing cohort (AUC = 0.967, p = 0.528). The R_IU model demonstrated significantly higher predictive value on peritoneal status than the clinical model and human experts in the testing cohort (AUC, 0.785, p = 0.005; AUC, 0.732, p <0.001, respectively). Conclusion DECT derived radiomics could serve as a non-invasive and easy-to-use biomarker to preoperatively predict PM for GC, providing opportunity for those patients to tailor appropriate treatment.