Early prediction of acute pancreatitis severity based on changes in pancreatic and peripancreatic computed tomography radiomics nomogram

Background: Early identification of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is key to reducing mortality and improving prognosis. We aimed to establish a radiomics model and nomogram for early prediction of acute pancreatitis (AP) severity based on contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) images. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 215 patients with first-episode AP, including 141 in the training cohort (87 men and 54 women, mean age 51.37±16.09 years) and 74 in the test cohort (40 men and 34 women, mean age 55.49±17.83 years). Radiomics features were extracted from portal venous phase images based on pancreatic and peripancreatic regions. The light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) algorithm was used for feature selection, a logistic regression (LR) model was established and trained by 10-fold cross-validation, and a nomogram was established based on the best features. The model’s predictive performance was evaluated according to the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Results: A total of 13 optimal radiomics features were selected by LightGBM for LR model building. The AUC of the radiomics (LR) model was 0.992 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.963–0.996] in the training cohort, 0.965 (95% CI: 0.924–0.981) in the validation cohort, and 0.894 (95% CI: 0.789–0.966) in the test cohort. The sensitivity was 0.862 (95% CI: 0.674–0.954), the specificity was 0.800 (95% CI: 0.649–0.899), and the accuracy was 0.824 (95% CI: 0.720–0.919). The nomogram based on the 13 radiomics features showed that SAP would be predicted when the total score was greater than 124. Conclusions: The radiomics model based on enhanced-CT images of pancreatic and peripancreatic regions performed well in the early prediction of AP severity. The nomogram based on selected radiomics features could provide a reference for AP clinical assessment.