Computed-tomography-based radiomics features for staging of interstitial lung disease – transferability from experimental to human lung fibrosis - a proof-of-concept study

Background: HRCT is a cornerstone for the diagnosis and monitoring of ILD. Recently, radiomics has emerged as a promising research field, which automatically extracts mineable quantitative data from medical images, aiming to identify imaging biomarkers. Aims: To evaluate 1) the potential of CT-based radiomics features for staging of experimental ILD and 2) the transferability of radiomics signatures to human ILD. Methods: Radiomics analysis was performed on HRCT scans from bleomycin (BLM)-treated mice and NaCl controls at days 3 and 14 after intratracheal BLM instillation (n=5 mice/group), and on human HRCT scans (mild ILD=20, advanced ILD=46). In total, 154 radiomics features were calculated on segmented lungs using the in-house developed software Z-Rad. A univariate logistic model was built for each feature to discriminate between mild and advanced fibrosis. Results: Radiomics features with good predictive performance (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) >0.7 and p-value Conclusions: This proof-of-concept study suggests that 1) the well-established mouse model of BLM-induced ILD is a valuable model system to test defined hypotheses in radiomics research and 2) that radiomics features show great potential as quantitative imaging biomarkers for staging of ILD.