Multi-parameter MRI radiomic features may contribute to predict progression-free survival in patients with WHO grade II meningiomas.

AIM

This study aims to investigate the potential value of radiomic features from multi-parameter MRI in predicting progression-free survival (PFS) of patients with WHO grade II meningiomas.

METHODS

Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used for survival analysis of clinical features. A total of 851 radiomic features were extracted based on tumor region segmentation from each sequence, and Max-Relevance and Min-Redundancy (mRMR) algorithm was applied to filter and select radiomic features. Bagged AdaBoost, Stochastic Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, and Neural Network models were built based on selected features. Discriminative abilities of models were evaluated using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC).

RESULTS

Our study enrolled 164 patients with WHO grade II meningiomas. Female gender (=0.023), gross total resection (GTR) (<0.001), age <68 years old (=0.023), and edema index <2.3 (=0.006) are protective factors for PFS in these patients. Both the Bagged AdaBoost model and the Neural Network model achieved the best performance on test set with an AUC of 0.927 (95% CI, Bagged AdaBoost: 0.834-1.000; Neural Network: 0.836-1.000).

CONCLUSION

The Bagged AdaBoost model and the Neural Network model based on radiomic features demonstrated decent predictive ability for PFS in patients with WHO grade II meningiomas who underwent operation using preoperative multi-parameter MR images, thus bringing benefit for patient prognosis prediction in clinical practice. Our study emphasizes the importance of utilizing advanced imaging techniques such as radiomics to improve personalized treatment strategies for meningiomas by providing more accurate prognostic information that can guide clinicians toward better decision-making processes when treating their patients' conditions effectively while minimizing risks associated with unnecessary interventions or treatments that may not be beneficial.