An MRI radiomics approach to predict survival and tumour-infiltrating macrophages in gliomas

Using pre-operative T2-weighted MRI from a large cohort of glioma patients, Li et al. develop a radiomics model that shows robust predictive power for overall survival. The model reveals associations between radiomic and molecular features, particularly tumour macrophage infiltration. Preoperative MRI is one of the most important clinical results for the diagnosis and treatment of glioma patients. The objective of this study was to construct a stable and validatable preoperative T-2-weighted MRI-based radiomics model for predicting the survival of gliomas. A total of 652 glioma patients across three independent cohorts were covered in this study including their preoperative T-2-weighted MRI images, RNA-seq and clinical data. Radiomic features (1731) were extracted from preoperative T-2-weighted MRI images of 167 gliomas (discovery cohort) collected from Beijing Tiantan Hospital and then used to develop a radiomics prediction model through a machine learning-based method. The performance of the radiomics prediction model was validated in two independent cohorts including 261 gliomas from the The Cancer Genomae Atlas database (external validation cohort) and 224 gliomas collected in the prospective study from Beijing Tiantan Hospital (prospective validation cohort). RNA-seq data of gliomas from discovery and external validation cohorts were applied to establish the relationship between biological function and the key radiomics features, which were further validated by single-cell sequencing and immunohistochemical staining. The 14 radiomic features-based prediction model was constructed from preoperative T-2-weighted MRI images in the discovery cohort, and showed highly robust predictive power for overall survival of gliomas in external and prospective validation cohorts. The radiomic features in the prediction model were associated with immune response, especially tumour macrophage infiltration. The preoperative T-2-weighted MRI radiomics prediction model can stably predict the survival of glioma patients and assist in preoperatively assessing the extent of macrophage infiltration in glioma tumours.