Artificial intelligence-based radiomics on computed tomography of lumbar spine in subjects with fragility vertebral fractures

Purpose There is emerging evidence that radiomics analyses can improve detection of skeletal fragility. In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated radiomics features (RFs) on computed tomography (CT) images of the lumbar spine in subjects with or without fragility vertebral fractures (VFs). Methods Two-hundred-forty consecutive individuals (mean age 60.4 ± 15.4, 130 males) were evaluated by radiomics analyses on opportunistic lumbar spine CT. VFs were diagnosed in 58 subjects by morphometric approach on CT or XR-ray spine (D4-L4) images. DXA measurement of bone mineral density (BMD) was performed on 17 subjects with VFs. Results Twenty RFs were used to develop the machine learning model reaching 0.839 and 0.789 of AUROC in the train and test datasets, respectively. After correction for age, VFs were significantly associated with RFs obtained from non-fractured vertebrae indicating altered trabecular microarchitecture, such as low-gray level zone emphasis (LGLZE) [odds ratio (OR) 1.675, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.215–2.310], gray level non-uniformity (GLN) (OR 1.403, 95% CI 1.023–1.924) and neighboring gray-tone difference matrix (NGTDM) contrast (OR 0.692, 95% CI 0.493–0.971). Noteworthy, no significant differences in LGLZE ( p = 0.94), GLN ( p = 0.40) and NGDTM contrast ( p = 0.54) were found between fractured subjects with BMD T score < − 2.5 SD and those in whom VFs developed in absence of densitometric diagnosis of osteoporosis. Conclusions Artificial intelligence-based analyses on spine CT images identified RFs associated with fragility VFs. Future studies are needed to test the predictive value of RFs on opportunistic CT scans in identifying subjects with primary and secondary osteoporosis at high risk of fracture.