Usefulness of gradient tree boosting for predicting histological subtype and EGFR mutation status of non-small cell lung cancer on ¹⁸F FDG-PET/CT

Objective: To develop and evaluate a radiomics approach for classifying histological subtypes and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation status in lung cancer on PET/CT images.

Methods: PET/CT images of lung cancer patients were obtained from public databases and used to establish two datasets, respectively to classify histological subtypes (156 adenocarcinomas and 32 squamous cell carcinomas) and EGFR mutation status (38 mutant and 100 wild-type samples). Seven types of imaging features were obtained from PET/CT images of lung cancer. Two types of machine learning algorithms were used to predict histological subtypes and EGFR mutation status: random forest (RF) and gradient tree boosting (XGB). The classifiers used either a single type or multiple types of imaging features. In the latter case, the optimal combination of the seven types of imaging features was selected by Bayesian optimization. Receiver operating characteristic analysis, area under the curve (AUC), and tenfold cross validation were used to assess the performance of the approach.

Results: In the classification of histological subtypes, the AUC values of the various classifiers were as follows: RF, single type: 0.759; XGB, single type: 0.760; RF, multiple types: 0.720; XGB, multiple types: 0.843. In the classification of EGFR mutation status, the AUC values were: RF, single type: 0.625; XGB, single type: 0.617; RF, multiple types: 0.577; XGB, multiple types: 0.659.

Conclusions: The radiomics approach to PET/CT images, together with XGB and Bayesian optimization, is useful for classifying histological subtypes and EGFR mutation status in lung cancer.