Systematic review: Radiomics for the diagnosis and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

Background Advances in imaging technology have the potential to transform the early diagnosis and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through quantitative image analysis. Computational radiomic techniques extract biomarker information from images which can be used to improve diagnosis and predict tumour biology. Aims To perform a systematic review on radiomic features in HCC diagnosis and prognosis, with a focus on reporting metrics and methodologic standardisation. Methods We performed a systematic review of all full-text articles published from inception through December 1, 2019. Standardised data extraction and quality assessment metrics were applied to all studies. Results A total of 54 studies were included for analysis. Radiomic features demonstrated good discriminatory performance to differentiate HCC from other solid lesions (c-statistics 0.66-0.95), and to predict microvascular invasion (c-statistic 0.76-0.92), early recurrence after hepatectomy (c-statistics 0.71-0.86), and prognosis after locoregional or systemic therapies (c-statistics 0.74-0.81). Common stratifying features for diagnostic and prognostic radiomic tools included analyses of imaging skewness, analysis of the peritumoural region, and feature extraction from the arterial imaging phase. The overall quality of the included studies was low, with common deficiencies in both internal and external validation, standardised imaging segmentation, and lack of comparison to a gold standard. Conclusions Quantitative image analysis demonstrates promise as a non-invasive biomarker to improve HCC diagnosis and management. However, standardisation of protocols and outcome measurement, sharing of algorithms and analytic methods, and external validation are necessary prior to widespread application of radiomics to HCC diagnosis and prognosis in clinical practice.

Automated summary

Studies have shown that radiomic features have good discriminatory performance in differentiating HCC from other solid lesions, predicting microvascular invasion, early recurrence after hepatectomy, and prognosis after therapies. However, the overall quality of the included studies was low due to common deficiencies in internal and external validation, standardized imaging segmentation, and comparison to a gold standard. Therefore, standardization of protocols and outcome measurements, sharing of algorithms and analytic methods, and external validation are necessary before widespread application of radiomics in HCC diagnosis and prognosis in clinical practice.