Dual biomarkers CT-based deep learning model incorporating intrathoracic fat for discriminating benign and malignant pulmonary nodules in multi-center cohorts.

BACKGROUND

Recent studies in the field of lung cancer have emphasized the important role of body composition, particularly fatty tissue, as a prognostic factor. However, there is still a lack of practice in combining fatty tissue to discriminate benign and malignant pulmonary nodules.

PURPOSE

This study proposes a deep learning (DL) approach to explore the potential predictive value of dual imaging markers, including intrathoracic fat (ITF), in patients with pulmonary nodules.

METHODS

We enrolled 1321 patients with pulmonary nodules from three centers. Image feature extraction was performed on computed tomography (CT) images of pulmonary nodules and ITF by DL, multimodal information was used to discriminate benign and malignant in patients with pulmonary nodules.

RESULTS

Here, the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the model for ITF combined with pulmonary nodules were 0.910(95 % confidence interval [CI]: 0.870-0.950, P = 0.016), 0.922(95 % CI: 0.883-0.960, P = 0.037) and 0.899(95 % CI: 0.849-0.949, P = 0.033) in the internal test cohort, external test cohort1 and external test cohort2, respectively, which were significantly better than the model for pulmonary nodules. Intrathoracic fat index (ITFI) emerged as an independent influencing factor for benign and malignant in patients with pulmonary nodules, correlating with a 9.4 % decrease in the risk of malignancy for each additional unit.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrates the potential auxiliary predictive value of ITF as a noninvasive imaging biomarker in assessing pulmonary nodules.