Purpose:To develop and validate a nomogram model combing radiomics features and clinical characteristics to preoperatively differentiate Grade1 and Grade2/3 tumors in patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs). Experimental Design:A total of 137 patients who underwent contrast-enhanced CT from two hospitals were included in this study. The patients from the second hospital (n=51) were selected as an independent validation set. The arterial phase in contrast-enhanced CT was selected for radiomics feature extraction. The Mann-Whitney U test and LASSO regression were applied for feature selection and radiomics signature construction. A combined nomogram model was developed by incorporating the radiomics signature with clinical factors. The association between the nomogram model and the Ki-67 index and rate of nuclear mitosis were also investigated respectively. The utility of the proposed model was evaluated using the ROC, area under ROC curve(AUC), calibration curve and decision curve analysis(DCA). The Kaplan-Meier(KM) analysis was employed for survival analysis. Results: An eight-feature-combined radiomics signature was constructed as a tumor grade predictor. The nomogram model combining the radiomics signature with clinical stage showed the best performance (training set: AUC=0.907; validation set: AUC=0.891). The calibration curve and DCA demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the proposed nomogram. A significant correlation was observed between the developed nomogram and Ki-67 index and rate of nuclear mitosis, respectively. The KM analysis showed a significant difference between the survival of predicted Grade1 and Grade2/3 groups (p=0.002). Conclusions:The combined nomogram model developed could be useful in differentiating Grade1 and Grade2/3 tumor in patients with pNETs.
21 June 2020 in Clinical and Translational Medicine
Background: The present study constructed and validated the use of contrast‐enhanced computed tomography (CT)‐based radiomics to preoperatively predict microvascular invasion (MVI) status (positive vs negative) and risk (low vs high) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods: We enrolled 637 patients from two independent institutions. Patients from Institution I were randomly divided into a training cohort of 451 patients and a test cohort of 111 patients. Patients from Institution II served as an independent validation set. The LASSO algorithm was used for the selection of 798 radiomics features. Two classifiers for predicting MVI status and MVI risk were developed using multivariable logistic regression. We also performed a survival analysis to investigate the potentially prognostic value of the proposed MVI classifiers.Results: The developed radiomics signature predicted MVI status with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of .780, .776, and .743 in the training, test, and independent validation cohorts, respectively. The final MVI status classifier that integrated two clinical factors (age and α‐fetoprotein level) achieved AUC of .806, .803, and .796 in the training, test, and independent validation cohorts, respectively. For MVI risk stratification, the AUCs of the radiomics signature were .746, .664, and .700 in the training, test, and independent validation cohorts, respectively, and the AUCs of the final MVI risk classifier‐integrated clinical stage were .783, .778, and .740, respectively. Survival analysis showed that our MVI status classifier significantly stratified patients for short overall survival or early tumor recurrence.Conclusions: Our CT radiomics‐based models were able to predict MVI status and MVI risk of HCC and might serve as a reliable preoperative evaluation tool.
Artificial intelligence (AI) offers transformative potential in pathology, where histopathological images remain the diagnostic gold standard due to their rich morphological and molecular information. While the rapid development of AI-driven computational pathology tools is revolutionizing disease interpretation, these technologies have not yet been systematically evaluated. Therefore, this review systematically evaluates AI applications across the diagnostic continuum, from image preprocessing and tumor classification to prognostic stratification and the discovery of predictive biomarkers. It presents a technical taxonomy of the algorithms and foundation models powering these applications, benchmarking their performance across diverse diagnostic tasks through rigorous comparative analyses. It also identifies critical challenges in clinical translation, including computational scaling, noisy annotations, interpretability gaps, and domain shifts. Finally, it proposes a roadmap for advancing AI applications in precision oncology and pathological research. By bridging technological innovation with clinical needs, this review aims to accelerate the integration of robust, unified, scalable AI solutions into diagnostic workflows.
Background: To compare the predictive power between radiomics and non-radiomics (conventional imaging and functional imaging methods) for preoperative evaluation of microvascular invasion (MVI) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Comprehensive publications were screened in PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library. Studies focusing on the discrimination values of imaging methods, including radiomics and non-radiomics methods, for MVI evaluation were included in our meta-analysis. Results: Thirty-three imaging studies with 5,462 cases, focusing on preoperative evaluation of MVI status in HCC, were included. The sensitivity and specificity of MVI prediction in HCC were 0.78 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.75–0.80; I2 = 70.7%] and 0.78 (95% CI: 0.76–0.81; I2 = 0.0%) for radiomics, respectively, and were 0.73 (95% CI: 0.71–0.75; I2 = 83.7%) and 0.82 (95% CI: 0.80–0.83; I2 = 86.5%) for non-radiomics, respectively. The areas under the receiver operation curves for radiomics and non-radiomics to predict MVI status in HCC were 0.8550 and 0.8601, respectively, showing no significant difference. Conclusion: The imaging method is feasible to predict the MVI state of HCC. Radiomics method based on medical image data is a promising application in clinical practice and can provide quantifiable image features. With the help of these features, highly consistent prediction performance will be achieved in anticipation.
Background: We conduct a study in developing and validating two radiomics-based models to preoperatively distinguish hepatic epithelioid angiomyolipoma (HEAML) from hepatic carcinoma (HCC) as well as focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH). Methods: Totally, preoperative contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) data of 170 patients and preoperative contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of 137 patients were enrolled in this study. Quantitative texture features and wavelet features were extracted from the regions of interest (ROIs) of each patient imaging data. Then two radiomics signatures were constructed based on CT and MRI radiomics features, respectively, using the random forest (RF) algorithm. By integrating radiomics signatures with clinical characteristics, two radiomics-based fusion models were established through multivariate linear regression and 10-fold cross-validation. Finally, two diagnostic nomograms were built to facilitate the clinical application of the fusion models. Results: The radiomics signatures based on the RF algorithm achieved the optimal predictive performance in both CT and MRI data. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) reached 0.996, 0.879, 0.999, and 0.925 for the training as well as test cohort from CT and MRI data, respectively. Then, two fusion models simultaneously integrated clinical characteristics achieved average AUCs of 0.966 (CT data) and 0.971 (MRI data) with 10-fold cross-validation. Through decision curve analysis, the fusion models were proved to be excellent models to distinguish HEAML from HCC and FNH in comparison between the clinical models and radiomics signatures. Conclusions: Two radiomics-based models derived from CT and MRI images, respectively, performed well in distinguishing HEAML from HCC and FNH and might be potential diagnostic tools to formulate individualized treatment strategies.
A perivascular epithelioid cell neoplasm (PEComa) in the chest is rare, let alone in the mediastinum and lung. A 63-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with chest pain for more than 2 months and was found to have an opacity in his mediastinum and lung for 3 weeks. Enhanced chest computed tomography (CT) revealed a mass in both the left upper lobe and central anterior mediastinum. To identify the disease, a CT-guided percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy of the upper left lung lesions was performed. The pathology result was consistent with epithelioid angiomyolipoma/PEComa. After a standard preparation for surgery, the neoplasms in the mediastinum and left lung were resected. The operative findings revealed extensive mediastinal tumor invasion in parts adjacent to the pericardium, including the mediastinal pleura, left pulmonary artery and vein, and phrenic nerve. The left lung tumor had invaded the lung membranes. The final pathologic diagnosis was malignant epithelioid angioleiomyoma in the left upper lung and mediastinum. Later, the mediastinal tumor recurred. The radiography of this case resembles left upper lobe lung cancer with mediastinal lymph node metastasis. Because this tumor lacks fat, the enhanced CT indicated that it was malignant but failed to identify it as a perivascular epithelioid cell neoplasm.This case reminds clinicians that, although most PEComa are benign, some can be malignant. As the radiology indicated, chest PEComas lack fat, which makes their preoperative diagnosis difficult. Therefore, needle biopsy is valuable for a definitive diagnosis.