The role of [18F]-DCFPyL PET/MRI radiomics for pathological grade group prediction in prostate cancer

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of [¹⁸F]-DCFPyL PET/MRI radiomics for the prediction of pathological grade group in prostate cancer (PCa) in therapy-naïve patients.

Methods: Patients with confirmed or suspected PCa, who underwent [¹⁸F]-DCFPyL PET/MRI (n = 105), were included in this retrospective analysis of two prospective clinical trials. Radiomic features were extracted from the segmented volumes following the image biomarker standardization initiative (IBSI) guidelines. Histopathology obtained from systematic and targeted biopsies of the PET/MRI-detected lesions was the reference standard. Histopathology patterns were dichotomized as ISUP GG 1-2 vs. ISUP GG ≥ 3 categories. Different single-modality models were defined for feature extraction, including PET- and MRI-derived radiomic features. The clinical model included age, PSA, and lesions' PROMISE classification. Single models, as well as different combinations of them, were generated to calculate their performances. A cross-validation approach was used to evaluate the internal validity of the models.

Results: All radiomic models outperformed the clinical models. The best model for grade group prediction was the combination of PET + ADC + T2w radiomic features, showing sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and AUC of 0.85, 0.83, 0.84, and 0.85, respectively. The MRI-derived (ADC + T2w) features showed sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and AUC of 0.88, 0.78, 0.83, and 0.84, respectively. PET-derived features showed 0.83, 0.68, 0.76, and 0.79, respectively. The baseline clinical model showed 0.73, 0.44, 0.60, and 0.58, respectively. The addition of the clinical model to the best radiomic model did not improve the diagnostic performance. The performances of MRI and PET/MRI radiomic models as per the cross-validation scheme yielded an accuracy of 0.80 (AUC = 0.79), whereas clinical models presented an accuracy of 0.60 (AUC = 0.60).

Conclusion: The combined [¹⁸F]-DCFPyL PET/MRI radiomic model was the best-performing model and outperformed the clinical model for pathological grade group prediction, indicating a complementary value of the hybrid PET/MRI model for non-invasive risk stratification of PCa. Further prospective studies are required to confirm the reproducibility and clinical utility of this approach.

Keywords: PET/MRI; Prostate; Radiomics.