Review of the use of radiomics to assess the risk of recurrence in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Background and Objective: Radiomics is an emerging field of advanced image analysis that has shown promise as a non-invasive, companion diagnostic in predicting clinical outcomes and response assessments in solid tumors. Radiomics aims to extract high-content information from medical images not visible to the naked eye, especially in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Although these patients are being identified by early detection programs, it remains unclear which patients would benefit from adjuvant treatment versus active surveillance. Having a radiomic signature(s) that could predict early recurrence would be beneficial. In this review, an overview of the basic radiomic approaches used to evaluate solid tumors on radiologic scans, including NSCLC is provided followed by a review of relevant literature that supports the use of radiomics to help predict tumor recurrence in early-stage NSCLC patients.