Radiomics AI prediction for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) prognosis and recurrence with target volume approach

To evaluate the performance of radiomics features extracted from planning target volume (PTV) and gross tumor volume (GTV) in the prediction of the death prognosis and cancer recurrence rate for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

188 HNSCC patients' planning CT images with radiotherapy structures sets were acquired from Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). The 3D slicer (v. 4.10.2) with the PyRadiomics extension (Computational Imaging and Bioinformatics Lab, Harvard medical School) was used to extract radiomics features from the radiotherapy planning images. An in-house developed deep learning artificial neural networks (DL-ANN) model was used to predict death prognosis and cancer recurrence rate based on the features extracted from GTV and PTV of the CT images.

The PTV radiomics features with DL-ANN model could achieve 77.7% accuracy with overall AUC equal to 0.934 and 0.932 when predicting HNSCC-related death prognosis and cancer recurrence respectively. Furthermore, the DL-ANN model can achieve an accuracy of 74.3% with AUC equal to 0.947 and 0.956 for the HNSCC-related death prognosis and cancer recurrence respectively using GTV features.

Using both GTV and PTV radiomics features in the DL-ANN model, can aid in predicting HNSCC-related death prognosis and cancer recurrence. Clinicians may find it helpful in formulating different treatment regimens and facilitate personized medicine based on the predicted outcome when performing GTV and PTV delineation.

Radiomics features of GTV and PTV are reliable prognosis and recurrence predicting tools, which may help clinicians in GTV and PTV delineation to facilitate delivery of personalized treatment.