Development and Validation of Noninvasive MRI‐Based Signature for Preoperative Prediction of Early Recurrence in Perihilar Cholangiocarcinoma

BACKGROUND: Cholangiocarcinoma is a type of hepatobiliary tumor. For perihilar cholangiocarcinoma (pCCA), patients who experience early recurrence (ER) have a poor prognosis. Preoperative accurate prediction of postoperative ER can avoid unnecessary operation; however, prediction is challenging. PURPOSE: To develop a novel signature based on clinical and/or MRI radiomics features of pCCA to preoperatively predict ER. STUDY TYPE: Retrospective. POPULATION: One hundred eighty-four patients (median age, 61.0 years; interquartile range: 53.0-66.8 years) including 115 men and 69 women. FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: A 1.5 T; volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (VIBE) sequence. ASSESSMENT: ). STATISTICAL TESTS: ) test or Fisher's exact test, Mann-Whitney U-test or t-test, Delong test. Two tailed P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: (P = 0.156 for training set and P = 0.439 for testing set). DATA CONCLUSION: A noninvasive model combining the MRI-based radiomics signature and clinical variables is potential to preoperatively predict ER for pCCA. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 4.