Radiomics Analysis for Glioma Malignancy Evaluation Using Diffusion Kurtosis and Tensor Imaging.

PURPOSE

A noninvasive diagnostic method to predict the degree of malignancy accurately would be of great help in glioma management. This study aimed to create a highly accurate machine learning model to perform glioma grading.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

Preoperative magnetic resonance imaging acquired for cases of glioma operated on at our institution from October 2014 through January 2018 were obtained retrospectively. Six types of magnetic resonance imaging sequences (T-weighted image, diffusion-weighted image, apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC], fractional anisotropy, and mean kurtosis [MK]) were chosen for analysis; 476 features were extracted semiautomatically for each sequence (2856 features in total). Recursive feature elimination was used to select significant features for a machine learning model that distinguishes glioblastoma from lower-grade glioma (grades 2 and 3).

RESULTS

Fifty-five data sets from 54 cases were obtained (14 grade 2 gliomas, 12 grade 3 gliomas, and 29 glioblastomas), of which 44 and 11 data sets were used for machine learning and independent testing, respectively. We detected 504 features with significant differences (false discovery rate <0.05) between glioblastoma and lower-grade glioma. The most accurate machine learning model was created using 6 features extracted from the ADC and MK images. In the logistic regression, the area under the curve was 0.90 ± 0.05, and the accuracy of the test data set was 0.91 (10 out of 11); using a support vector machine, they were 0.93 ± 0.03 and 0.91 (10 out of 11), respectively (kernel, radial basis function; c = 1.0).

CONCLUSIONS

Our machine learning model accurately predicted glioma tumor grade. The ADC and MK sequences produced particularly useful features.