CT-based subregional and peritumoral radiomics for predicting pathological T stage of clear cell renal cell carcinoma: an exploratory study of biological mechanisms.

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate intratumoral subregional and peritumoral radiomics for predicting pathological T stage of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), and investigate the biological mechanisms of radiomics.

Materials and methods: This retrospective study included 323 ccRCC patients from two centers, divided into training (n = 148), internal test (n = 38), and external validation (n = 137) sets. Patients were stratified into low (T1 and T2, n = 222) and high (T3 and T4, n = 101) T stage groups. The tumors were segmented into different intratumoral subregions via the Gaussian mixture model (GMM). Radiomic features (RFs) were extracted from the whole tumor region (VOI_whole), intratumoral subregions (VOI_subx), and the peritumoral region (VOI_peri). Several machine learning (ML) models and radiomic score (Radscore) were developed to predict pathological T stage and prognosis of ccRCC. Radiogenomics analysis was used to explore the relationship between radiomics and biologic pathways.

Results: Two intratumoral subregions were segmented. The support vector machine (SVM)-based combined model, constructed using RFs from VOI_sub1 and VOI_peri, achieved the highest AUC values, of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.68-0.96) and 0.80 (95% CI: 0.71-0.88) in the internal test and external validation sets, respectively. A higher Radscore was correlated with poorer overall survival (OS) (p < 0.001). Radiogenomics analysis revealed that radiomics was associated with extracellular matrix remodeling, vesicle transport, protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, and the Hippo signaling pathway.

Conclusions: An ML model combining intratumoral subregion and peritumoral RFs showed good performance in predicting the pathological T stage of ccRCC, and these RFs were associated with biological pathways underlying tumor invasion.

Critical relevance statement: This study develops a validated CT-radiomics model (intratumoral subregions + peritumoral) predicting ccRCC T stage. The prognostic Radscore links to invasion biology (ECM remodeling, Hippo/ER dysregulation), enabling clinical translation.

Key points: Subregional and peritumoral radiomics models accurately predicted ccRCC (clear cell renal cell carcinoma) histological T stage. Radiomics score identified that high-risk ccRCC patients had poorer overall survival. Predictive radiomic features (RFs) were associated with biological pathways underlying tumor invasion.