Radiomic Texture Analysis Based on Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging to Differentiate Glioblastoma from Solitary Brain Metastasis

Background We created discriminative models of different regions of interest (ROIs) using radiomic texture features of neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) and evaluated the feasibility of each model in differentiating glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) from solitary brain metastasis (SBM). Methods We conducted a retrospective study of 204 patients with GBM (n = 146) or SBM (n = 58). Radiomic texture features were extracted from five ROIs based on three metric maps (intracellular volume fraction, orientation dispersion index, and isotropic volume fraction of NODDI), including necrosis, solid tumors, peritumoral edema, tumor bulk volume (TBV), and abnormal bulk volume. Four feature selection methods and eight classifiers were used for the radiomic texture feature selection and model construction. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the models. Routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiomic texture feature models generated in the same manner were used for the horizontal comparison. Results NODDI-radiomic texture analysis based on TBV subregions exhibited the highest accuracy (although nonsignificant) in differentiating GBM from SBM, with area under the ROC curve (AUC) values of 0.918 and 0.882 in the training and test datasets, respectively, compared to necrosis (AUC training :0.845, AUC test :0.714), solid tumor (AUC training :0.852, AUC test :0.821), peritumoral edema (AUC training :0.817, AUC test :0.762), and ABV (AUC training :0.834, AUC test :0.779). The performance of the five ROI radiomic texture models in routine MRI was inferior to that of the NODDI-radiomic texture model. Conclusion Preoperative NODDI-radiomic texture analysis based on TBV subregions shows great potential for distinguishing GBM from SBM.