Vulnerabilities of radiomic features to respiratory motion on four‐dimensional computed tomography‐based average intensity projection images: A phantom study

PURPOSE: To evaluate the influence of respiratory motion on the robustness of radiomic features on four‐dimensional computed tomography (4DCT)‐based average intensity projection (AIP) images by employing an anthropomorphic chest phantom. METHODS: Three spherical objects (φ30 mm), namely, acrylic (100 Hounsfield unit [HU], homogeneous), rubber (−140 HU, homogeneous), and cork (−630 HU, heterogeneous), were moved with motion amplitudes of 0, 1, 2.5, 4, 6, 8, and 10 mm in the phantom, and 4DCT scans were repeated at four different locations. Thereafter, the AIP images were generated considering the average of the 10 respiratory phases of the 4DCT images. Further, the targets were manually delineated on the AIP images in the lung window setting. A total of 851 radiomic features, including 107 unfiltered features and 744 wavelet filter‐based features, were extracted from the region of interest for each material. The feature robustness among the different target motion amplitude (ε) was evaluated by normalizing the feature variability of the target motion relative to the variability of data from 573 patients with early‐stage non‐small cell lung cancer. The features with absolute ε values ≤0.5 were considered highly robust to target motions. RESULTS: The percentage of robust unfiltered and wavelet filter‐based features with a motion amplitude of 1 mm was greater than 83.2% and 93.4%, respectively; however, the percentage decreased by more than 24.3% and 17.6%, respectively, for motion amplitudes greater than 2.5 mm. The movement of cork had a small effect on the feature robustness compared to that of acrylic and rubber, regardless of the target motion amplitudes. CONCLUSIONS: Our phantom study demonstrated that target motion amplitudes ≤1 mm led to the robustness of radiomic features on the 4DCT‐based AIP images of thoracic regions. The frequency components and directions of the wavelet filters may be essential factors in 4DCT‐based radiomic analysis.