Radiomics prediction of surgery in ulcerative colitis refractory to medical treatment

The surgeries in drug-resistant ulcerative colitis are determined by complex factors. This study evaluated the predictive performance of radiomics analysis on the basis of whether patients with ulcerative colitis in hospital were in the surgical or medical treatment group by discharge from hospital.

This single-center retrospective cohort study used CT at admission of patients with US admitted from 2015 to 2022. The target of prediction was whether the patient would undergo surgery by the time of discharge. Radiomics features were extracted using the rectal wall at the level of the tailbone tip of the CT as the region of interest. CT data were randomly classified into a training cohort and a validation cohort, and LASSO regression was performed using the training cohort to create a formula for calculating the radiomics score.

A total of 147 patients were selected, and data from 184 CT scans were collected. Data from 157 CT scans matched the selection criteria and were included. Five features were used for the radiomics score. Univariate logistic regression analysis of clinical information detected a significant influence of severity (p < 0.001), number of drugs used until surgery (p < 0.001), Lichtiger score (p = 0.024), and hemoglobin (p = 0.010). Using a nomogram combining these items, we found that the discriminatory power in the surgery and medical treatment groups was AUC 0.822 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.841-0.951) for the training cohort and AUC 0.868 (95% CI 0.729-1.000) for the validation cohort, indicating a good ability to discriminate the outcomes.

Radiomics analysis of CT images of patients with US at the time of admission, combined with clinical data, showed high predictive ability regarding a treatment strategy of surgery or medical treatment.