CT-based radiomics to predict the pathological grade of bladder cancer

To build a CT-based radiomics model to predict the pathological grade of bladder cancer (BCa) preliminarily. Patients with surgically resected and pathologically confirmed BCa and who received CT urography (CTU) in our institution from October 2014 to September 2017 were retrospectively enrolled and randomly divided into training and validation groups. After feature extraction, we calculated the linear dependent coefficient between features to eliminate the collinearity. F-test was then used to identify the best features related to pathological grade. The logistic regression method was used to build the prediction model, and diagnostic performance was analyzed by plotting receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and calculating area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). Out of 145 included patients, 108 constituted the training group and 37 the validation group. The AUC value of the radiomics prediction model to diagnose the pathological grade of BCa was 0.950 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.912–0.988) in the training group and 0.860 (95% CI 0.742–0.979) in the validation group, respectively. In the validation group, the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV were 83.8%, 88.5%, 72.7%, 88.5%, and 72.7%, respectively. CT-based radiomics model can differentiate high-grade from low-grade BCa with a fairly good diagnostic performance. •CT-based radiomics model can predict the pathological grade of bladder cancer. •This model has good diagnostic performance to differentiate high-grade and low-grade bladder cancer. •This preoperative and non-invasive prediction method might become an important addition to biopsy.