BACKGROUND

Preoperative stratification is critical for the management of patients with esophageal cancer (EC). To investigate the feasibility and accuracy of PET-CT-based radiomics in preoperative prediction of clinical and pathological stages for patients with EC.

METHODS

Histologically confirmed 100 EC patients with preoperative PET-CT images were enrolled retrospectively and randomly divided into training and validation cohorts at a ratio of 7:3. The maximum relevance minimum redundancy (mRMR) was applied to select optimal radiomics features from PET, CT, and fused PET-CT images, respectively. Logistic regression (LR) was applied to classify the T stage (T vs. T), lymph node metastasis (LNM) (LNM vs. LNM), and pathological state (pstage) (I-II vs. III-IV) with features from CT (CT_LR_Score), PET (PET_LR_Score), fused PET/CT (Fused_LR_Score), and combined CT and PET features (CT + PET_LR_Score), respectively.

RESULTS

Seven, 10, and 7 CT features; 7, 8, and 7 PET features; and 3, 6, and 3 fused PET/CT features were selected using mRMR for the prediction of T stage, LNM, and pstage, respectively. The area under curves (AUCs) for T stage, LNM, and pstage prediction in the validation cohorts were 0.846, 0.756, 0.665, and 0.815; 0.769, 0.760, 0.665, and 0.824; and 0.727, 0.785, 0.689, and 0.837 for models of CT_LR_Score, PET_ LR_Score, Fused_ LR_Score, and CT + PET_ LR_Score, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

Accurate prediction ability was observed with combined PET and CT radiomics in the prediction of T stage, LNM, and pstage for EC patients.

CRITICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT

PET/CT radiomics is feasible and promising to stratify stages for esophageal cancer preoperatively.

KEY POINTS

• PET-CT radiomics achieved the best performance for Node and pathological stage prediction. • CT radiomics achieved the best AUC for T stage prediction. • PET-CT radiomics is feasible and promising to stratify stages for EC preoperatively.