A CT-based Radiomics Nomogram for Distinguishing Between Benign and Malignant Bone Tumours

Background: We sought to evaluate the performance of a computed tomography (CT)-based radiomics nomogram we devised in distinguishing benign from malignant bone tumours.

Methods: Two hundred and six patients with bone tumours were spilt into two groups: a training set (n = 155) and a validation set (n = 51). A feature extraction process based on 3D Slicer software was used to extract the radiomics features from unenhanced CT images, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator logistic regression was used to calculate the radiomic score to generate a radiomics signature. A clinical model comprised demographics and CT features. A radiomics nomogram combined with the clinical model and the radiomics signature was constructed. The performance of the three models was comprehensively evaluated from three aspects: identification ability, accuracy, and clinical value, allowing for generation of an optimal prediction model.

Results: The radiomics nomogram comprised clinical and radiomics signature features. The nomogram model displayed good performance in training and validation sets with areas under the curve of 0.917 and 0.823, respectively. The areas under the curve, decision curve analysis, and net reclassification improvement showed that the radiomics nomogram model could obtain better diagnostic performance than the clinical model and achieve greater clinical net benefits than the clinical and radiomics signature models alone.

Conclusions: We constructed a combined nomogram comprising a clinical model and radiomics signature as a noninvasive preoperative prediction method to distinguish between benign and malignant bone tumours and assist treatment planning.