MRI-based radiomics approach for differentiation of hypovascular non-functional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and solid pseudopapillary neoplasms of the pancreas

Background This study aims to investigate the value of radiomics parameters derived from contrast enhanced (CE) MRI in differentiation of hypovascular non-functional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (hypo-NF-pNETs) and solid pseudopapillary neoplasms of the pancreas (SPNs). Methods Fifty-seven SPN patients and twenty-two hypo-NF-pNET patients were enrolled. Radiomics features were extracted from T1WI, arterial, portal and delayed phase of MR images. The enrolled patients were divided into training cohort and validation cohort with the 7:3 ratio. We built four radiomics signatures for the four phases respectively and ROC analysis were used to select the best phase to discriminate SPNs from hypo-NF-pNETs. The chosen radiomics signature and clinical independent risk factors were integrated to construct a clinic-radiomics nomogram. Results SPNs occurred in younger age groups than hypo-NF-pNETs ( P  < 0.0001) and showed a clear preponderance in females ( P  = 0.0185). Age was a significant independent factor for the differentiation of SPNs and hypo-NF-pNETs revealed by logistic regression analysis. With AUC values above 0.900 in both training and validation cohort (0.978 [95% CI, 0.942–1.000] in the training set, 0.907 [95% CI, 0.765–1.000] in the validation set), the radiomics signature of the arterial phase was picked to build a clinic-radiomics nomogram. The nomogram, composed by age and radiomics signature of the arterial phase, showed sufficient performance for discriminating SPNs and hypo-NF-pNETs with AUC values of 0.965 (95% CI, 0.923–1.000) and 0.920 (95% CI, 0.796–1.000) in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. Delong Test did not demonstrate statistical significance between the AUC of the clinic-radiomics nomogram and radiomics signature of arterial phase. Conclusion CE-MRI-based radiomics approach demonstrated great potential in the differentiation of hypo-NF-pNETs and SPNs.