A multitask framework based on CA-EfficientNetV2 for the prediction of glioma molecular biomarkers.

INTRODUCTION

Glioma is the most common primary malignant tumor of the central nervous system. The mutation status of isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) and the methylation status of the O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter are key biomarkers for glioma diagnosis and prognosis. Accurate, non-invasive prediction of these biomarkers using MRI is of significant clinical value.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We proposed a novel multitask deep learning framework based on Coordinate Attention-EfficientNetV2 (CA-EfficientNetV2) to simultaneously predict IDH mutation and MGMT promoter methylation status based on MRI data. Initially, unlabeled MR images were annotated using K-means clustering to generate pseudolabels, which were subsequently refined using a Vision Transformer (ViT) network to improve labeling accuracy. Then, the Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) was employed to assign optimal weights to the pseudolabeled data. The CA-EfficientNetV2 model, integrated with a coordinate attention mechanism, was constructed. The multitask framework comprised three independent subnetworks: T2-net (based on T2-weighted imaging), T1C-net (based on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted imaging), and TU-net (based on the fusion of T2WI and T1CWI).

RESULTS

The proposed framework demonstrated high performance in predicting both IDH mutation and MGMT promoter methylation status. Among the three subnetworks, TU-net achieved the best results, with accuracies of 0.9598 for IDH and 0.9269 for MGMT, and AUCs of 0.9930 and 0.9584, respectively. Comparative analysis showed that our proposed model outperformed other convolutional neural network (CNN) - based approaches.

CONCLUSION

The CA-EfficientNetV2-based multitask framework offers a robust, non-invasive method for preoperative prediction of glioma molecular markers. This approach holds strong potential to support clinical decision-making and personalized treatment planning in glioma management.