XGboost Prediction Model Based on 3.0T Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging Improves the Diagnostic Accuracy of MRI BiRADS 4 Masses

BACKGROUND: The malignant probability of MRI BiRADS 4 breast lesions ranges from 2% to 95%, leading to unnecessary biopsies. The purpose of this study was to construct an optimal XGboost prediction model through a combination of DKI independently or jointly with other MR imaging features and clinical characterization, which was expected to reduce false positive rate of MRI BiRADS 4 masses and improve the diagnosis efficiency of breast cancer. METHODS: 120 patients with 158 breast lesions were enrolled. DKI, Diffusion-weighted Imaging (DWI), Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) and Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) were performed on a 3.0-T scanner. Wilcoxon signed-rank test and χ2 test were used to compare patient’s clinical characteristics, mean kurtosis (MK), mean diffusivity (MD), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), total choline (tCho) peak, extravascular extracellular volume fraction (V(e)), flux rate constant (K(ep)) and volume transfer constant (K(trans)). ROC curve analysis was used to analyze the diagnostic performances of the imaging parameters. Spearman correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the associations of imaging parameters with prognostic factors and breast cancer molecular subtypes. The Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selectionator operator (lasso) and the area under the curve (AUC) of imaging parameters were used to select discriminative features for differentiating the breast benign lesions from malignant ones. Finally, an XGboost prediction model was constructed based on the discriminative features and its diagnostic efficiency was verified in BiRADS 4 masses. RESULTS: MK derived from DKI performed better for differentiating between malignant and benign lesions than ADC, MD, tCho, K(ep) and K(trans) (p < 0.05). Also, MK was shown to be more strongly correlated with histological grade, Ki-67 expression and lymph node status. MD, MK, age, shape and menstrual status were selected to be the optimized feature subsets to construct an XGboost model, which exhibited superior diagnostic ability for breast cancer characterization and an improved evaluation of suspicious breast tumors in MRI BiRADS 4. CONCLUSIONS: DKI is promising for breast cancer diagnosis and prognostic factor assessment. An optimized XGboost model that included DKI, age, shape and menstrual status is effective in improving the diagnostic accuracy of BiRADS 4 masses.