Use of Radiomics to Improve Diagnostic Performance of PI-RADS v2.1 in Prostate Cancer

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether a radiomics model can help to improve the performance of PI-RADS v2.1 in prostate cancer (PCa). METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis of 203 patients with pathologically confirmed PCa or non-PCa between March 2015 and December 2016. Patients were divided into a training set (n = 141) and a validation set (n = 62). The radiomics model (Rad-score) was developed based on multi-parametric MRI including T2 weighted imaging (T2WI), diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) imaging, and dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) imaging. The combined model involving Rad-score and PI-RADS was compared with PI-RADS for the diagnosis of PCa by using the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis. RESULTS: A total of 112 (55.2%) patients had PCa, and 91 (44.8%) patients had benign lesions. For PCa versus non-PCa, the Rad-score had a significantly higher area under the ROC curve (AUC) [0.979 (95% CI, 0.940–0.996)] than PI-RADS [0.905 (0.844–0.948), P = 0.002] in the training set. However, the AUC between them was insignificant in the validation set [0.861 (0.749–0.936) vs. 0.845 (0.731–0.924), P = 0.825]. When Rad-score was added to PI-RADS, the performance of the PI-RADS was significantly improved for the PCa diagnosis (AUC = 0.989, P < 0.001 for the training set and AUC = 0.931, P = 0.038 for the validation set). CONCLUSIONS: The radiomics based on multi-parametric MRI can help to improve the diagnostic performance of PI-RADS v2.1 in PCa.