The value of multiparametric MRI radiomics and machine learning in predicting preoperative Ki-67 expression level in...

This study was to develop a multi-parametric MRI radiomics model to predict preoperative Ki-67 status.

A total of 120 patients with pathologically confirmed breast cancer were retrospectively enrolled and randomly divided into a training set (n = 84) and a validation set (n = 36). Radiomic features were derived from both the intratumoral and peritumoral regions, extending 5 mm from the tumor boundary, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The MRI sequences employed included T2-weighted imaging (T2WI), dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) imaging, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps. The T-test and the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator Cross-Validation (LASSO CV) were conducted for feature selection. Model_intra, model_peri, model_intra+peri were established by eleven supervised machine learning (ML) algorithms to predict the expression status of Ki-67 in breast cancer and were verified by the validation groups. The model's performance was evaluated by employing metrics such as the area under the curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.

The features of intratumor, peritumor, intratumor + peritumor were extracted 851, 851 and 1702 samples respectively, 14, 23 and 35 features were selected by LASSO. ML algorithms based on model_intra and model_peri consistently yield AUCs that are below 80% in the validation set. Hower, Logistic regression (LR) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) based on model_intra+peri demonstrated significant advantages over other algorithms, achieving AUCs of 0.92 and 0.98, accuracies of 0.94 and 0.97, sensitivities of 1 and 0.96, and specificities of 0.85 and 1 respectively in the validation set.

The integrated intra- and peritumoral radiomics model, developed using multiparametric MRI data and machine learning classifiers, exhibits significant predictive power for Ki-67 expression levels. This model could facilitate personalized clinical treatment strategies for individuals diagnosed with breast cancer (BC).

Not applicable.