MRI texture features as biomarkers to predict MGMT methylation status in glioblastomas.

Abstract

PURPOSE:

Imaging biomarker research focuses on discovering relationships between radiological features and histological findings. In glioblastoma patients, methylation of the O(6)-methylguanine methyltransferase (MGMT) gene promoter is positively correlated with an increased effectiveness of current standard of care. In this paper, the authors investigate texture features as potential imaging biomarkers for capturing the MGMT methylation status of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tumors when combined with supervised classification schemes.

METHODS:

A retrospective study of 155 GBM patients with known MGMT methylation status was conducted. Co-occurrence and run length texture features were calculated, and both support vector machines (SVMs) and random forest classifiers were used to predict MGMT methylation status.

RESULTS:

The best classification system (an SVM-based classifier) had a maximum area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.85 (95% CI: 0.78-0.91) using four texture features (correlation, energy, entropy, and local intensity) originating from the T2-weighted images, yielding at the optimal threshold of the ROC curve, a sensitivity of 0.803 and a specificity of 0.813.

CONCLUSIONS:

Results show that supervised machine learning of MRI texture features can predict MGMT methylation status in preoperative GBM tumors, thus providing a new noninvasive imaging biomarker.

• Authors: Panagiotis Korfiatis, Timothy L Kline, Lucie Coufalova, Daniel H Lachance, Ian F Parney, Rickey E Carter, Jan C Buckner, Bradley J Erickson
• Journal: Medical physics (Med Phys) Vol. 43 Issue 6 Pg. 2835-2844 (Jun 2016) ISSN: 2473-4209 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 27277032 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Chemical References

• Biomarkers, Tumor
• Tumor Suppressor Proteins
• DNA Modification Methylases
• MGMT protein, human
• DNA Repair Enzymes

Topics

• Biomarkers, Tumor (genetics)
• Brain (diagnostic imaging, surgery)
• Brain Neoplasms (diagnostic imaging, genetics, surgery)
• DNA Methylation
• DNA Modification Methylases (genetics)
• DNA Repair Enzymes (genetics)
• Glioblastoma (diagnostic imaging, genetics, surgery)
• Humans
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (methods)
• Promoter Regions, Genetic
• ROC Curve
• Retrospective Studies
• Support Vector Machine
• Tumor Suppressor Proteins (genetics)