Machine Learning Based Gray-level Co-occurrence Matrix Early Warning System Enables Accurate Detection of Colorectal Cancer Pelvic Bone Metastases on MRI

Objective: The mortality of colorectal cancer patients with pelvic bone metastasis is imminent, and timely diagnosis and intervention to improve the prognosis is particularly important. Therefore, this study aimed to build a bone metastasis prediction model based on Gray level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) - based Score to guide clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Methods: We retrospectively included 614 patients with colorectal cancer who underwent pelvic multiparameter magnetic resonance image(MRI) from January 2015 to January 2022 in the gastrointestinal surgery department of Gezhouba Central Hospital of Sinopharm. GLCM-based Score and Machine learning algorithm, that is,artificial neural net7work model(ANNM), random forest model(RFM), decision tree model(DTM) and support vector machine model(SVMM) were used to build prediction model of bone metastasis in colorectal cancer patients. The effectiveness evaluation of each model mainly included decision curve analysis(DCA), area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve and clinical influence curve(CIC).

Results: We captured fourteen categories of radiomics data based on GLCM for variable screening of bone metastasis prediction models. Among them, Haralick_90, IV_0, IG_90, Haralick_30, CSV, Entropy and Haralick_45 were significantly related to the risk of bone metastasis, and were listed as candidate variables of machine learning prediction models. Among them, the prediction efficiency of RFM in combination with Haralick_90, Haralick_all, IV_0, IG_90, IG_0, Haralick_30, CSV, Entropy and Haralick_45 in training set and internal verification set was [AUC: 0.926,95% CI: 0.873-0.979] and [AUC: 0.919,95% CI: 0.868-0.970] respectively. The prediction efficiency of the other four types of prediction models was between [AUC: 0.716,95% CI: 0.663-0.769] and [AUC: 0.912,95% CI: 0.859-0.965].

Conclusion: The automatic segmentation model based on diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI) using depth learning method can accurately segment the pelvic bone structure, and the subsequently established radiomics model can effectively detect bone metastases within the pelvic scope, especially the RFM algorithm, which can provide a new method for automatically evaluating the pelvic bone turnover of colorectal cancer patients.