Dataset Information

A meta-analysis of the diagnostic performance of machine learning-based MRI in the prediction of axillary lymph node metastasis in breast cancer patients

ABSTRACT:

Background

Despite that machine learning (ML)-based MRI has been evaluated for diagnosis of axillary lymph node metastasis (ALNM) in breast cancer patients, diagnostic values they showed have been variable. In this study, we aimed to assess the use of ML to classify ALNM on MRI and to identify potential covariates that might influence the diagnostic performance of ML.

Methods

A systematic research of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library was conducted until 27 December 2020 to collect the included articles. Subgroup analysis was also performed.

Findings

Fourteen studies assessing a total of 2247 breast cancer patients were included in the analysis. The overall AUC for ML in the validation set was 0.80 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.76–0.83) with a negative predictive value of 0.83. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.79 (95% CI 0.74–0.84) and 0.77 (95% CI 0.73–0.81), respectively. In the subgroup analysis of the validation set, T1-weighted contrast-enhanced (T1CE) imaging with ML yielded a higher sensitivity (0.80 vs. 0.67 vs. 0.76) than the T2-weighted fat-suppressed (T2-FS) imaging and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Support vector machines (SVMs) had a higher specificity than linear regression (LR) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) (0.79 vs. 0.78 vs. 0.75), whereas LDA showed a higher sensitivity than LR and SVM (0.83 vs. 0.70 vs. 0.77).

Interpretation

MRI sequences and algorithms were the main factors that affect the diagnostic performance of ML. Although its results were encouraging with the pooled sensitivity of around 0.80, it meant that 1 in 5 women that would go with undetected metastases, which may have a detrimental effect on the overall survival for 20% of patients with positive SLN status. Despite that a high NPV of 0.83 meant that ML could potentially benefit those with negative SLN, it might also translate to 1 in 5 tests being false negative. We would like to suggest that ML may not be yet usable in clinical routine especially when patient survival is used as a primary measurement of its outcome.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13244-021-01034-1.

SUBMITTER: Chen C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8566689 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Radiomics features may contribute to increased diagnostic performance of MRI in the prediction of axillary lymph node metastasis. The objective of the study was to predict preoperative axillary lymph node metastasis in breast cancer using clinical models and radiomics models based on T2-weighted (T2W) dedicated axillary MRI features with node-by-node analysis. From August 2012 until October 2014, all women who had undergone dedicated axillary 3.0T T2W MRI, followed by axillary surgery, were retrospectively identified, and available clinical data were collected. All axillary lymph nodes were manually delineated on the T2W MR images, and quantitative radiomics features were extracted from the delineated regions. Data were partitioned patient-wise to train 100 models using different splits for the training and validation cohorts to account for multiple lymph nodes per patient and class imbalance. Features were selected in the training cohorts using recursive feature elimination with repeated 5-fold cross-validation, followed by the development of random forest models. The performance of the models was assessed using the area under the curve (AUC). A total of 75 women (median age, 61 years; interquartile range, 51-68 years) with 511 axillary lymph nodes were included. On final pathology, 36 (7%) of the lymph nodes had metastasis. A total of 105 original radiomics features were extracted from the T2W MR images. Each cohort split resulted in a different number of lymph nodes in the training cohorts and a different set of selected features. Performance of the 100 clinical and radiomics models showed a wide range of AUC values between 0.41-0.74 and 0.48-0.89 in the training cohorts, respectively, and between 0.30-0.98 and 0.37-0.99 in the validation cohorts, respectively. With these results, it was not possible to obtain a final prediction model. Clinical characteristics and dedicated axillary MRI-based radiomics with node-by-node analysis did not contribute to the prediction of axillary lymph node metastasis in breast cancer based on data where variations in acquisition and reconstruction parameters were not addressed.