CT-Based Radiomic Score: A Risk Stratifier in Far-Advanced Gastric Cancer Patients

Abstract

To prolong the survival, the value of a computed tomography-based radiomic score (RS) in stratifying survival and guiding personalized chemotherapy strategies in far-advanced gastric cancer (FGC) was investigated. This retrospective multicenter study enrolled 283 FGC patients (cT4a/bNxM0-1) from three centers. Patients from one center were randomly divided into the training (n=166) and internal validation (n=83) cohorts, whereas the external validation cohort (n=34) consisted of patients from the two other centers. The RS was calculated for each patient to predict progression-free survival (PFS). Features from the primary tumor and main metastasis (peritoneum, liver, and lymph node) were integrated in the training cohort and then validated for its ability to stratify PFS and overall survival (OS) in the validation cohort. The association between the RS and efficacy of neoadjuvant intraperitoneal and systemic (NIPS) therapy was also explored. The RS demonstrated a favorable prognostic ability to predict PFS in all cohorts (training: C-index 0.83, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.788-0.872; internal validation: C-index 0.75, 95% CI: 0.682-0.818; external validation: C-index 0.76, 95% CI: 0.669-0.851; all p < 0.05), as well as an excellent ability to stratify the PFS and OS in both the whole population and metastatic subgroups (p < 0.05). Patients with a low score were more likely to undergo surgery after perioperative chemotherapy (p < 0.05). Furthermore, only high-scoring patients with peritoneal metastasis benefited from NIPS. The RS may be an effective risk stratifier for the outcomes of FGC patients and may be used to select patients who can benefit from NIPS therapy.