Enhanced ISUP grade prediction in prostate cancer using multi-center radiomics data.

Abstract

Background: To explore the predictive value of radiomics features extracted from anatomical ROIs in differentiating the International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) grading in prostate cancer patients.

Methods: This study included 1,500 prostate cancer patients from a multi-center study. The peripheral zone (PZ) and central gland (CG, transition zone + central zone) of the prostate were segmented using deep learning algorithms and were defined as the regions of interest (ROI) in this study. A total of 12,918 image-based features were extracted from T2-weighted imaging (T2WI), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) images of these two ROIs. Synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) algorithm was used to address the class imbalance problem. Feature selection was performed using Pearson correlation analysis and random forest regression. A prediction model was built using the random forest classification algorithm. Kruskal-Wallis H test, ANOVA, and Chi-Square Test were used for statistical analysis.

Results: A total of 20 ISUP grading-related features were selected, including 10 from the PZ ROI and 10 from the CG ROI. On the test set, the combined PZ + CG radiomics model exhibited better predictive performance, with an AUC of 0.928 (95% CI: 0.872, 0.966), compared to the PZ model alone (AUC: 0.838; 95% CI: 0.722, 0.920) and the CG model alone (AUC: 0.904; 95% CI: 0.851, 0.945).

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that radiomic features extracted based on anatomical sub-region of the prostate can contribute to enhanced ISUP grade prediction. The combination of PZ + GG can provide more comprehensive information with improved accuracy. Further validation of this strategy in the future will enhance its prospects for improving decision-making in clinical settings.