Radiomics Texture Features in Advanced Colorectal Cancer: Correlation with Mutation and 5-year Overall Survival.

PURPOSE

To explore the potential of radiomics texture features as potential biomarkers to enable detection of the presence of mutation and prediction of 5-year overall survival (OS) in stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this retrospective study, a total of 145 patients (mean age, 61 years ± 14 [standard deviation {SD}]; 68 female patients and 77 male patients) with stage IV CRC who underwent molecular profiling and pretreatment contrast material-enhanced CT scans between 2004 and 2018 were included. Tumor radiomics texture features, including the mean, the SD, the mean value of positive pixels (MPP), skewness, kurtosis, and entropy, were extracted from regions of interest on CT images after applying three Laplacian-of-Gaussian filters known as spatial scaling factors (SSFs) (SSF = 2, fine; SSF = 4, medium; SSF = 6, coarse) by using specialized software; values of these parameters were also obtained without filtration (SSF = 0). The Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to assess differences between mutated versus wild-type tumors. Associations between radiomics texture features and 5-year OS were determined by using Kaplan-Meier estimators using the log-rank test and multivariate Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis.

RESULTS

The SDs and MPPs of radiomic texture features were significantly lower in mutant tumors than in wild-type tumors at SSFs of 0, 4, and 6 ( = .006, = .007, and = .005, respectively). Patients with skewness less than or equal to -0.75 at an SSF of 0 and a mean of greater than or equal to 17.76 at an SSF of 2 showed better 5-year OS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.53 [95% confidence interval {CI}: 0.29, 0.94]; HR, 0.40 [95% CI: 0.22, 0.71]; log-rank = .025 and = .002, respectively). Tumor location (right colon vs left colon vs rectum) had no significant impact on the clinical outcome (log-rank = .53).

CONCLUSION

Radiomics texture features can serve as potential biomarkers for determining mutation status and as predictors of 5-year OS in patients with advanced-stage CRC. Abdomen/GI, CT, Comparative Studies, Large Bowel© RSNA, 2020.