Development of a Radiomics Prediction Model for Histological Type Diagnosis in Solitary Pulmonary Nodules: The Combination of CT and FDG PET

PURPOSE: To develop a diagnostic model for histological subtypes in lung cancer combined CT and FDG PET. METHODS: Machine learning binary and four class classification of a cohort of 445 lung cancer patients who have CT and PET simultaneously. The outcomes to be predicted were primary, metastases (Mts), adenocarcinoma (Adc), and squamous cell carcinoma (Sqc). The classification method is a combination of machine learning and feature selection that is a Partition-Membership. The performance metrics include accuracy (Acc), precision (Pre), area under curve (AUC) and kappa statistics. RESULTS: The combination of CT and PET radiomics (CPR) binary model showed more than 98% Acc and AUC on predicting Adc, Sqc, primary, and metastases, CPR four-class classification model showed 91% Acc and 0.89 Kappa. CONCLUSION: The proposed CPR models can be used to obtain valid predictions of histological subtypes in lung cancer patients, assisting in diagnosis and shortening the time to diagnostic.