Establishment and validation of a radiological-radiomics model for predicting high-grade patterns of lung adenocarcinoma less than or equal to 3 cm

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to develop a Radiological-Radiomics (R-R) based model for predicting the high-grade pattern (HGP) of lung adenocarcinoma and evaluate its predictive performance. METHODS: The clinical, pathological, and imaging data of 374 patients pathologically confirmed with lung adenocarcinoma (374 lesions in total) were retrospectively analyzed. The 374 lesions were assigned to HGP (n = 81) and non-high-grade pattern (n-HGP, n = 293) groups depending on the presence or absence of high-grade components in pathological findings. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) method was utilized to screen features on the United Imaging artificial intelligence scientific research platform, and logistic regression models for predicting HGP were constructed, namely, Radiological model, Radiomics model, and R-R model. Also, receiver operating curve (ROC) curves were plotted on the platform, generating corresponding area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Using the platform, nomograms for R-R models were also provided, and calibration curves and decision curves were drawn to evaluate the performance and clinical utility of the model. The statistical differences in the performance of the models were compared by the DeLong test. RESULTS: The R-R model for HGP prediction achieved an AUC value of 0.923 (95% CI: 0.891-0.948), a sensitivity of 87.0%, a specificity of 83.4%, and an accuracy of 84.2% in the training set. In the validation set, this model exhibited an AUC value of 0.920 (95% CI: 0.887-0.945), a sensitivity of 87.5%, a specificity of 83.3%, and an accuracy of 84.2%. The DeLong test demonstrated optimal performance of the R-R model among the three models, and decision curves validated the clinical utility of the R-R model. CONCLUSION: In this study, we developed a fusion model using radiomic features combined with radiological features to predict the high-grade pattern of lung adenocarcinoma, and this model shows excellent diagnostic performance. The R-R model can provide certain guidance for clinical diagnosis and surgical treatment plans, contributing to improving the prognosis of patients.