Diagnostic nomogram model for predicting preoperative pathological grade of meningioma

Meningioma is the most common primary tumor of the central nervous system. Preoperative diagnosis of high-grade meningioma is helpful for the selection of treatment options. The aim of our study is to establish a diagnostic nomogram model for preoperative prediction of the pathological grade of meningioma.

The predictive model was established from a cohort of 215 clinicopathologically confirmed meningioma between January 2012 and December 2017. Radiomic features were collected from preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography of patients with meningioma. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression model was used for data dimension reduction and feature selection. Multivariate logistic regression was used to build a predictive model and presented as a nomogram. The performance of the nomogram was assessed with respect to its calibration, discrimination, and clinical usefulness. Internal validation was evaluated using bootstrapping validation.

High-grade meningioma was observed in 47 patients (22%). The predictors included in the nomogram were tumor-brain interface, bone invasion, and tumor location. The final diagnostic model exhibited good calibration and discrimination with a C-index of 0.874 (95% confidence interval: 0.818-0.929) and a higher C-index of 0.868 in internal validation. Decision curve analysis (DCA) indicated that the nomogram is very useful in clinical practice.

This study provides a nomogram model with tumor-brain interface, bone invasion, and tumor location that can effectively predict the preoperative pathological grading of patients with meningioma and thus help clinicians provide more reasonable treatment strategies for meningioma patients.