Differentiation of Low-Grade Astrocytoma From Anaplastic Astrocytoma Using Radiomics-Based Machine Learning Techniques

PURPOSE: To investigate the diagnostic ability of radiomics-based machine learning in differentiating atypical low-grade astrocytoma (LGA) from anaplastic astrocytoma (AA). METHODS: The current study involved 175 patients diagnosed with LGA (n = 95) or AA (n = 80) and treated in the Neurosurgery Department of West China Hospital from April 2010 to December 2019. Radiomics features were extracted from pre-treatment contrast-enhanced T1 weighted imaging (T1C). Nine diagnostic models were established with three selection methods [Distance Correlation, least absolute shrinkage, and selection operator (LASSO), and Gradient Boosting Decision Tree (GBDT)] and three classification algorithms [Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and random forest (RF)]. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and areas under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of each model were calculated. Diagnostic ability of each model was evaluated based on these indexes. RESULTS: Nine radiomics-based machine learning models with promising diagnostic performances were established. For LDA-based models, the optimal one was the combination of LASSO + LDA with AUC of 0.825. For SVM-based modes, Distance Correlation + SVM represented the most promising diagnostic performance with AUC of 0.808. And for RF-based models, Distance Correlation + RF were observed to be the optimal model with AUC of 0.821. CONCLUSION: Radiomic-based machine-learning has the potential to be utilized in differentiating atypical LGA from AA with reliable diagnostic performance.