A clinical study exploring the prediction of microvascular invasion in hepatocellular carcinoma through the use of combined enhanced CT and MRI radiomics

Objective: To develop a predictive model for microvascular invasion (MVI) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through radiomics analysis, integrating data from both enhanced computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 93 HCC patients who underwent partial hepatectomy. The gold standard for MVI was based on the histopathological diagnosis of the tissue. The 93 patients were randomly divided into training and validation groups in 7:3 ratio. The imaging data of patients, including CT and MRI, were collected and processed using 3D Slicer to delineate the region of interest (ROI) for each tumor. Radiomics features were extracted from CT and MRI of patients using Python. Lasso regression analysis was used to select optimal radiomics features for MVI in the training group. The optimal radiomics features of CT and MRI were selected to establish the prediction model. The predictive performance of the model was evaluated using the receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC), calibration curve, and decision curve analysis (DCA). Results: After univariate and multivariate analyses, it was found that tumor diameter was significantly different between the MVI positive and negative groups. After extracting 2153 imaging phenotyping features from the CT and MRI images of the 93 patients using Python, ten standardized coefficient non-zero imaging phenotyping features were finally determined by Lasso regression analysis in the CT and MRI images. A comprehensive predictive model with clinical variable and optimal radiomics features was established. The area under the curve (AUC) of the training group was 0.916 (95%CI: 0.843–1.000), sensitivity: 95.2%, specificity: 79.2%. In the validation group, the predictive model diagnosed MVI with AUC = 0.816 (95%CI: 0.642–0.990), sensitivity: 84.2%, and specificity: 75.0%. Conclusion: The joint model that integrated the optimal radiomics features with clinical variables has good diagnostic performance for MVI of HCC and specific clinical applicability.