Volume 45, Issue 4 e16051
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

ViT-based quantification of intratumoral heterogeneity for predicting the early recurrence in HCC following multiple ablation

Ke Zhang

Ke Zhang

Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

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Jinyu Ru

Jinyu Ru

CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Wenbo Wang

Wenbo Wang

Department of Ultrasound, Key laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

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Min Xu

Min Xu

Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

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Lei Mu

Lei Mu

Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

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Jinhua Pan

Jinhua Pan

Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

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Jionghui Gu

Jionghui Gu

Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

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Haoyan Zhang

Haoyan Zhang

CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Jie Tian

Jie Tian

CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

School of Engineering Medicine, Beihang University, Beijing, China

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Wei Yang

Corresponding Author

Wei Yang

Department of Ultrasound, Key laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

Correspondence

Wei Yang, Department of Ultrasound, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China.

Email: [email protected]

Tianan Jiang, Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

Email: [email protected]

Kun Wang, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.

Email: [email protected]

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Tianan Jiang

Corresponding Author

Tianan Jiang

Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

Correspondence

Wei Yang, Department of Ultrasound, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China.

Email: [email protected]

Tianan Jiang, Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

Email: [email protected]

Kun Wang, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.

Email: [email protected]

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Kun Wang

Corresponding Author

Kun Wang

CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Correspondence

Wei Yang, Department of Ultrasound, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China.

Email: [email protected]

Tianan Jiang, Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

Email: [email protected]

Kun Wang, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 11 November 2024

Ke Zhang, Jinyu Ru, and Wenbo Wang contributed equally to this article.

Handling Editor: Dr. Alejandro Forner

Abstract

Objectives

This study aimed to develop a quantitative intratumoral heterogeneity (ITH) model for assessing the risk of early recurrence (ER) in pre-treatment multimodal imaging for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients undergoing ablation treatments.

Methods

This multi-centre study enrolled 633 HCC patients who underwent ultrasound-guided local ablation between January 2015 and September 2022. Among them, 422, 85, 57 and 69 patients underwent radiofrequency ablation (RFA), microwave ablation (MWA), laser ablation (LA) and irreversible electroporation (IRE) ablation, respectively. Vision-Transformer-based quantitative ITH (ViT-Q-ITH) features were extracted from the US and MRI sequences. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify variables associated with ER. A combined model integrated clinic-radiologic and ViT-Q-ITH scores. The prediction performance was evaluated concerning calibration, clinical usefulness and discrimination.

Results

The final training cohort and internal validation cohort included 318 patients and 83 patients, respectively, who underwent RFA and MWA. The three external testing cohorts comprised of 106 patients treated with RFA, 57 patients treated with LA and 69 patients who underwent IRE ablation. The combined model showed excellent predictive performance for ER in the training (AUC: .99, 95% CI: .99–1.00), internal validation (AUC: .86, 95% CI: .78–.94), external testing (AUC: .83, 95% CI: .73–.92), LA (AUC: .84, 95% CI: .73–.95) and IRE (AUC: .82, 95% CI: .72–.93) cohorts, respectively. Decision curve analysis further affirmed the clinical utility of the combined model.

Conclusions

The multimodal-based model, incorporating clinic-radiologic factors and ITH features, demonstrated superior performance in predicting ER among early-stage HCC patients undergoing different ablation modalities.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies, whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Due to patient privacy considerations, data related to patients cannot be made publicly accessible. However, interested parties can request access to the data from the corresponding author through a reasonable inquiry process, subject to approval by the Institutional Review Board of all enrolled centres.

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