Decoding incidental ovarian lesions: use of texture analysis and machine learning for characterization and detection of malignancy

Purpose To compare CT texture features of benign and malignant ovarian lesions and to build a machine learning model to detect malignancy in incidental ovarian lesions. Methods In this IRB-approved, HIPAA-compliant, retrospective study, 427 consecutive patients with incidental ovarian lesions detected on contrast-enhanced CT (348, 81.5% benign and 79, 18.5% malignant) were included. The following CT texture features were analyzed using commercially available software (TexRAD, Feedback Plc, Cambridge, UK): total pixel, mean, standard deviation (SD), entropy, mean value of positive pixels (MPP), skewness, kurtosis and entropy. Three machine learning models were created by combining texture features and patients’ age, and performance of these models was assessed using tenfold cross-validation. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) were constructed to assess sensitivity and specificity. The cutoff value was picked using a cost-weighted method. Results Total pixels, mean, SD, entropy, MPP, and skewness were significantly different between benign and malignant groups ( p < 0.05). With a selected 10 as a cost factor to optimize cutoff value selection, sensitivity 92%, specificity 60% in the random forest (RF) model, sensitivity 91%, specificity 69% in SVM model, and sensitivity 92%, specificity 61% in the logistic regression, respectively. Conclusion CT texture analysis could provide objective imaging analysis of incidental ovarian lesions and ML models using CT texture features and age demonstrated high sensitivity and moderate specificity for detection of malignant lesions.