Radiomics Based on Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound Images for Diagnosis of Pancreatic Serous Cystadenoma

Objective: The purpose of the study was to develop and validate a radiomics model by using contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) data for pre-operative differential diagnosis of pancreatic cystic neoplasms (PCNs), especially pancreatic serous cystadenoma (SCA).

Methods: Patients with pathologically confirmed PCNs who underwent CEUS examination at Chinese PLA hospital from May 2015 to August 2022 were retrospectively collected. Radiomic features were extracted from the regions of interest, which were obtained based on CEUS images. A support vector machine algorithm was used to construct a radiomics model. Moreover, based on the CEUS image features, the CEUS and the combined models were constructed using logistic regression. The performance and clinical utility of the optimal model were evaluated by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity and decision curve analysis.

Results: A total of 113 patients were randomly split into the training (n = 79) and test cohorts (n = 34). These patients were pathologically diagnosed with SCA, mucinous cystadenoma, intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm and solid-pseudopapillary tumor. The radiomics model achieved an AUC of 0.875 and 0.862 in the training and test cohorts, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of the radiomics model were 81.5% and 86.5% in the training cohort and 81.8% and 91.3% in the test cohort, respectively, which were higher than or comparable with that of the CEUS model and the combined model.

Conclusion: The radiomics model based on CEUS images had a favorable differential diagnostic performance in distinguishing SCA from other PCNs, which may be beneficial for the exploration of personalized management strategies.