CT-based radiomics to distinguish progressive from stable neuroendocrine liver metastases treated with somatostatin analogues: an explorative study

Background Accurate response evaluation in patients with neuroendocrine liver metastases (NELM) remains a challenge. Radiomics has shown promising results regarding response assessment. Purpose To differentiate progressive (PD) from stable disease (SD) with radiomics in patients with NELM undergoing somatostatin analogue (SSA) treatment. Material and Methods A total of 46 patients with histologically confirmed gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NET) with >= 1 NELM and >= 2 computed tomography (CT) scans were included. Response was assessed with Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST1.1). Hepatic target lesions were manually delineated and analyzed with radiomics. Radiomics features were extracted from each NELM on both arterial-phase (AP) and portal-venous-phase (PVP) CT. Multiple instance learning with regularized logistic regression via LASSO penalization (with threefold cross-validation) was used to classify response. Three models were computed: (i) AP model; (ii) PVP model; and (iii) AP + PVP model for a lesion-based and patient-based outcome. Next, clinical features were added to each model. Results In total, 19 (40%) patients had PD. Median follow-up was 13 months (range 1-50 months). Radiomics models could not accurately classify response (area under the curve 0.44-0.60). Adding clinical variables to the radiomics models did not significantly improve the performance of any model. Conclusion Radiomics features were not able to accurately classify response of NELM on surveillance CT scans during SSA treatment.