A radiomics signature to identify malignant and benign liver tumors on plain CT images.

BACKGROUND: In regular examinations, it may be difficult to visually identify benign and malignant liver tumors based on plain computed tomography (CT) images. RCAD (radiomics-based computer-aided diagnosis) has proven to be helpful and provide interpretability in clinical use. OBJECTIVE: This work aims to develop a CT-based radiomics signature and investigate its correlation with malignant/benign liver tumors. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 168 patients of hepatocellular carcinoma (malignant) and 117 patients of hepatic hemangioma (benign). Texture features were extracted from plain CT images and used as candidate features. A radiomics signaturewas developed from the candidate features. We performed logistic regression analysis and used a multiple-regression coefficient (termed as R) to assess the correlation between the developed radiomics signature and malignant/benign liver tumors. Finally, we built a logistic regression model to classify benign and malignant liver tumors. RESULTS: Thirteen features were chosen from 1223 candidate features to constitute the radiomics signature. The logistic regression analysis achieved an R = 0.6745, which was much larger than R-alpha = 0.3703 (the critical value of R at significant level alpha = 0.001). The logistic regression model achieved an average AUC of 0.87. CONCLUSIONS: The developed radiomics signature was statistically significantly correlated with malignant/benign liver tumors (p < 0.001). It has potential to help enhance physicians' diagnostic abilities and play an important role in RCADs.