Combined radiomics of primary tumour and bone metastasis improve the prediction of EGFR mutation status and response to EGFR-TKI therapy for NSCLC

Purpose To develop radiomics models of primary tumour and spinal metastases to predict epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations and therapeutic response to EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) in patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods We enrolled 203 patients with spinal metastases between December 2017 and September 2021, classified as patients with the EGFR mutation or EGFR wild-type. All patients underwent thoracic CT and spinal MRI scans before any treatment. Radiomics analysis was performed to extract features from primary tumour and metastases images and identify predictive features with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Radiomics signatures (RS) were constructed based on primary tumour (RS-Pri), metastases (RS-Met), and in combination (RS-Com) to predict EGFR mutation status and response to EGFR-TKI. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis with 10-fold cross-validation was applied to assess the performance of the models. Results To predict the EGFR mutation status, the RS based on the combination of primary tumour and metastases improved the prediction AUCs compared to those based on the primary tumour or metastasis alone in the training (RS-Com-EGFR: 0.927) and validation (RS-Com-EGFR: 0.812) cohorts. To predict response to EGFR-TKI, the developed RS based on combined primary tumour and metastasis generated the highest AUCs in the training (RS-Com-TKI: 0.880) and validation (RS-Com-TKI: 0.798) cohort. Conclusions Primary NSCLC and spinal metastases can provide complementary information to predict the EGFR mutation status and response to EGFR-TKI. The developed models that integrate primary lesions and metastases may be potential imaging markers to guide individual treatment decisions.