A Combined Nomogram Model to Preoperatively Predict Histologic Grade in Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

Purpose:To develop and validate a nomogram model combing radiomics features and clinical characteristics to preoperatively differentiate Grade1 and Grade2/3 tumors in patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs). Experimental Design:A total of 137 patients who underwent contrast-enhanced CT from two hospitals were included in this study. The patients from the second hospital (n=51) were selected as an independent validation set. The arterial phase in contrast-enhanced CT was selected for radiomics feature extraction. The Mann-Whitney U test and LASSO regression were applied for feature selection and radiomics signature construction. A combined nomogram model was developed by incorporating the radiomics signature with clinical factors. The association between the nomogram model and the Ki-67 index and rate of nuclear mitosis were also investigated respectively. The utility of the proposed model was evaluated using the ROC, area under ROC curve(AUC), calibration curve and decision curve analysis(DCA). The Kaplan-Meier(KM) analysis was employed for survival analysis. Results: An eight-feature-combined radiomics signature was constructed as a tumor grade predictor. The nomogram model combining the radiomics signature with clinical stage showed the best performance (training set: AUC=0.907; validation set: AUC=0.891). The calibration curve and DCA demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the proposed nomogram. A significant correlation was observed between the developed nomogram and Ki-67 index and rate of nuclear mitosis, respectively. The KM analysis showed a significant difference between the survival of predicted Grade1 and Grade2/3 groups (p=0.002). Conclusions:The combined nomogram model developed could be useful in differentiating Grade1 and Grade2/3 tumor in patients with pNETs.

https://ift.tt/2D65tAK