Association of Multi-Phasic MR-Based Radiomic and Dosimetric Features with Treatment Response in Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients following Novel Sequential TACE-SBRT-Immunotherapy

Simple Summary Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent and devastating malignancies worldwide. An ongoing phase-II clinical trial assesses the efficacy of a novel sequential trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) plus stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) plus immunotherapy strategy as an induction therapy for unresectable HCC patients. This study aims to investigate the potential association between radiomic features extracted from pre-treatment multi-phasic MR images and treatment response following the novel intervention strategy. In this study, Four DeltaP-derived radiomics that characterize the temporal change in intratumoral randomness and uniformity were identified as the contributors to the treatment response for a 3-month timepoint. Additional arterial phase (AP)-derived radiomic features and tumor morphology were also shown to have strong associations with treatment response for a 6-month timepoint. The success of this study would demonstrate the feasibility of pre-treatment identification of responsive HCC patients, paving the way toward effective and personalized oncology for HCC management. This study aims to investigate the association of pre-treatment multi-phasic MR-based radiomics and dosimetric features with treatment response to a novel sequential trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) plus stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) plus immunotherapy regimen in unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) sub-population. Twenty-six patients with unresectable HCC were retrospectively analyzed. Radiomic features were extracted from 42 lesions on arterial phase (AP) and portal-venous phase (PVP) MR images. Delta-phase (DeltaP) radiomic features were calculated as AP-to-PVP ratio. Dosimetric data of the tumor was extracted from dose-volume-histograms. A two-sided independent Mann-Whitney U test was used to assess the clinical association of each feature, and the classification performance of each significant independent feature was assessed using logistic regression. For the 3-month timepoint, four DeltaP-derived radiomics that characterize the temporal change in intratumoral randomness and uniformity were the only contributors to the treatment response association (p-value = 0.038-0.063, AUC = 0.690-0.766). For the 6-month timepoint, DeltaP-derived radiomic features (n = 4) maintained strong clinical associations with the treatment response (p-value = 0.047-0.070, AUC = 0.699-0.788), additional AP-derived radiomic features (n = 4) that reflect baseline tumoral arterial-enhanced signal pattern and tumor morphology (n = 1) that denotes initial tumor burden were shown to have strong associations with treatment response (p-value = 0.028-0.074, AUC = 0.719-0.773). This pilot study successfully demonstrated associations of pre-treatment multi-phasic MR-based radiomics with tumor response to the novel treatment regimen.

Automated summary

This study investigates the association between pre-treatment multi-phasic MR-based radiomics and treatment response to a novel therapeutic regimen for unresectable HCC. The study identifies specific radiomic features that are associated with treatment response and demonstrates the potential for pre-treatment identification of responsive HCC patients. The findings highlight the importance of personalized oncology for HCC management.