Radiomics Analysis and Correlation With Metabolic Parameters in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Based on PET/MR Imaging

Objective: Accurate staging is of great importance in treatment selection for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The aim of this study was to construct radiomic models of NPC staging based on positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) images respectively, and investigate the correlation between metabolic parameters and radiomic features. Methods: A total of 100 consecutive cases of NPC (70 in training and 30 in testing cohort) with undifferentiated carcinoma confirmed pathologically were recruited. Metabolic parameters of the local lesions of NPC were measured. The total 396 radiomic features based on PET and MRI images were calculated (include Histogram, Haralick, Shape factor, Gray level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM), and Run-length matrix (RLM)) and selected (using maximum relevance and minimum redundancy (mRMR) and least shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO)) respectively. The logistic regression models were established according to these features. Finally, the relationship between metabolic parameters and radiomic features was analyzed. Results: We selected the most relevant nine radiomic features (6 from MR images, 3 from PET images) from local NPC lesions. In PET model, the area under the ROC curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the training group were 0.84, 0.75, 0.90 and 0.69, respectively. In MR model, those metrics were 0.85, 0.83, 0.75 and 0.86, respectively. Pearson correlation analysis showed that the metabolic parameters had different degrees of correlation with the selected radiomic features. Conclusion: The PET and MR radiomic models were helpful for the diagnosis of NPC staging. There was a correlation between the metabolic parameters and radiomic features of primary NPC based on PET/MR. In the future, the PET/MR-based radiomic models, with further improvement and validation, can be a more useful and economical tool for predicting local invasion and distant metastasis of NPC.