Medical Physics, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy.
Radiology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy.
Phys Med. 2019 Jan;57:41-46. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2018.12.005. Epub 2018 Dec 18.
The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of CT delineation uncertainty of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (panNEN) on Radiomic features (RF).
Thirty-one previously operated patients were considered. Three expert radiologists contoured panNEN lesions on pre-surgical high-resolution contrast-enhanced CT images and contours were transferred onto pre-contrast CT. Volume agreement was quantified by the DICE index. After images resampling and re-binning, 69 RF were extracted and the impact of inter-observer variability was assessed by Intra-Class Correlation (ICC): ICC > 0.80 was considered as a threshold for "very high" inter-observer agreement.
The median volume was 1.3 cc (range: 0.2-110 cc); a satisfactory inter-observer volume agreement was found (mean DICE = 0.78). Only 4 RF showed ICC < 0.80 (0.48-0.73), including asphericity and three RFs (of five) of the neighborhood intensity difference matrix (NID).
The impact of inter-observer variability in delineating panNEN on RF was minimum, with the exception of the NID family and asphericity, showing a moderate agreement. These results support the feasibility of studies aiming to assess CT radiomic biomarkers for panNEN.
本研究旨在量化胰腺神经内分泌肿瘤（panNEN）CT 勾画不确定性对放射组学特征（RF）的影响。
纳入 31 例已行手术的患者。三位专家放射科医生对术前高分辨率增强 CT 图像上的 panNEN 病变进行勾画，并将其转移到平扫 CT 上。采用 DICE 指数量化体积吻合度。在图像重采样和重分箱后，提取 69 个 RF，并通过组内相关系数（ICC）评估观察者间变异性的影响：ICC＞0.80 被认为是观察者间“非常高”一致性的阈值。
中位体积为 1.3cc（范围：0.2-110cc）；发现观察者间体积吻合度良好（平均 DICE=0.78）。只有 4 个 RF 的 ICC＜0.80（0.48-0.73），包括非球形度和邻域强度差矩阵（NID）的 3 个 RF（共 5 个）。
除 NID 家族和非球形度外，观察者间勾画 panNEN 对 RF 的变异性影响最小，其一致性为中度。这些结果支持旨在评估 panNEN 的 CT 放射组学生物标志物的研究的可行性。
