Computed Tomography Radiomics-Based Prediction of Microvascular Invasion in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Due to the high recurrence rate in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after resection, preoperative prognostic prediction of HCC is important for appropriate patient management. Exploring and developing preoperative diagnostic methods has great clinical value in treating patients with HCC. This study sought to develop and evaluate a novel combined clinical predictive model based on standard triphasic computed tomography (CT) to discriminate microvascular invasion (MVI) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

The preoperative findings of 82 patients with HCC, including conventional clinical factors, CT imaging findings, and CT texture analysis (TA), were analyzed retrospectively. All included cases were divided into MVI-negative (n = 33; no MVI) and MVI-positive (n = 49; low or high risk of MVI) groups. TA parameters were extracted from non-enhanced, arterial, portal venous, and equilibrium phase images and subsequently calculated using the Artificial Intelligence Kit. After statistical analyses, a clinical model comprising conventional clinical and CT image risk factors, radiomics signature models, and a novel combined model (fused radiomic signature) was constructed. The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was used to assess the performance of the various models in discriminating MVI.

We found that tumor diameter and pathological grade were effective clinical predictors in clinical model and 12 radiomics features were effective for MVI prediction of each CT phase. The AUCs of the clinical, plain, artery, venous, and delay models were 0.77 (95% CI: 0.67-0.88), 0.75 (95% CI: 0.64-0.87), 0.79 (95% CI: 0.69-0.89), 0.73 (95% CI: 0.61-0.85), and 0.80 (95% CI: 0.70-0.91), respectively. The novel combined model exhibited the best performance, with an AUC of 0.83 (95% CI: 0.74-0.93).

Models derived from triphasic CT can preoperatively predict MVI in patients with HCC. Of the models tested here, the novel combined model was most predictive and could become a useful tool to guide subsequent personalized treatment of HCC.