Radiomics-Based Analysis of Intestinal Ultrasound Images for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Feasibility Study

The increasing adoption of intestinal ultrasound (IUS) for monitoring inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) by IBD providers has uncovered new challenges regarding standardized image interpretation and limitations as a research tool. Artificial intelligence approaches can help address these challenges. We aim to determine the feasibility of radiomic analysis of IUS images and to determine if a radiomics-based classification model can accurately differentiate between normal and abnormal IUS images. We will also compare the radiomic-based model's performance to a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based classification model to understand which method is more effective for extracting meaningful information from IUS images.

Retrospectively analyzing IUS images obtained during routine outpatient visits, we developed and tested radiomic-based and CNN-based models to distinguish between normal and abnormal images, with abnormal images defined as bowel wall thickness > 3 mm or bowel hyperemia with modified Limberg score ≥ 1 (both are surrogate markers for inflammation). Model performances were measured by area under the receiver operator curve (AUC).

For this feasibility study, 125 images (33% abnormal) were analyzed. A radiomic-based model using XG boost yielded the best classifier model with average test AUC 0.98%, 93.8% sensitivity, 93.8% specificity, and 93.7% accuracy. The CNN-based classification model yielded an average testing AUC of 0.75.

Radiomic analysis of IUS images is feasible, and a radiomic-based classification model could accurately differentiate abnormal from normal images. Our findings establish methods to facilitate future radiomic-based IUS studies that can help standardize image interpretation and expand IUS research capabilities.