Predicting Treatment Response to Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Rectal Mucinous Adenocarcinoma Using an MRI-Based Radiomics Nomogram

OBJECTIVE: To build and validate an MRI-based radiomics nomogram to predict the therapeutic response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) in rectal mucinous adenocarcinoma (RMAC). METHODS: Totally, 92 individuals with pathologically confirmed RMAC administered surgical resection upon nCRT in two different centers were assessed retrospectively (training set, n = 52, validation set, n = 40). Rectal MRI was performed pre-nCRT. Radiomics parameters were obtained from high-resolution T2-weighted images and selected to construct a radiomics signature. Then, radiomics nomogram construction integrated patient variables and the radiomics signature. The resulting radiomics nomogram was utilized to assess the tumor regression grade (TRG). Diagnostic performance was determined by generating receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and decision curve analysis (DCA). RESULTS: Six optimal features related to TRG were obtained to construct a radiomics signature. The nomogram combining the radiomics signature with age and mucin deposit outperformed the radiomics signature alone in the training (AUC, 0.950 vs 0.843, p < 0.05) and validation (AUC, 0.868 vs 0.719, p < 0.05) cohorts. DCA demonstrated a clinical utility for the radiomics nomogram model. CONCLUSIONS: The established quantitative MRI-based radiomics nomogram is effective in predicting treatment response to neoadjuvant therapy in patients with RMAC.