%0 Journal Article
%T Assessing the stability and discriminative ability of radiomics features in the tumor microenvironment: Leveraging peri-tumoral regions in vestibular schwannoma.
%A Hosseini MS
%A Aghamiri SMR
%A Fatemi Ardekani A
%A BagheriMofidi SM
%J Eur J Radiol
%V 178
%N 0
%D 2024 Sep 28
%M 39089057
%F 4.531
%R 10.1016/j.ejrad.2024.111654
%X <B>OBJECTIVE: </B>The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a crucial role in tumor progression and treatment response. Radiomics offers a non-invasive approach to studying the TME by extracting quantitative features from medical images. In this study, we present a novel approach to assess the stability and discriminative ability of radiomics features in the TME of vestibular schwannoma (VS).<BR><B>METHODS: </B>Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data from 242 VS patients were analyzed, including contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (ceT1) and high-resolution T2-weighted (hrT2) sequences. Radiomics features were extracted from concentric peri-tumoral regions of varying sizes. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess feature stability and discriminative ability, establishing quantile thresholds for ICCmin and ICCmax.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>The identified thresholds for ICCmin and ICCmax were 0.45 and 0.72, respectively. Features were classified into four categories: stable and discriminative (S-D), stable and non-discriminative (S-ND), unstable and discriminative (US-D), and unstable and non-discriminative (US-ND). Different feature groups exhibited varying proportions of S-D features across ceT1 and hrT2 sequences. The similarity of S-D features between ceT1 and hrT2 sequences was evaluated using Jaccard's index, with a value of 0.78 for all feature groups which is ranging from 0.68 (intensity features) to 1.00 (Neighbouring Gray Tone Difference Matrix (NGTDM) features).<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>This study provides a framework for identifying stable and discriminative radiomics features in the TME, which could serve as potential biomarkers or predictors of patient outcomes, ultimately improving the management of VS patients.