Interpretable multiphasic CT-based radiomic analysis for preoperatively differentiating benign and malignant solid renal tumors: a multicenter study

Abstract Background To develop and compare machine learning models based on triphasic contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) for distinguishing between benign and malignant renal tumors. Materials and Methods In total, 427 patients were enrolled from two medical centers: Center 1 (serving as the training set) and Center 2 (serving as the external validation set). First, 1781 radiomic features were individually extracted from corticomedullary phase (CP), nephrographic phase (NP), and excretory phase (EP) CECT images, after which 10 features were selected by the minimum redundancy maximum relevance method. Second, random forest (RF) models were constructed from single-phase features (CP, NP, and EP) as well as from the combination of features from all three phases (TP). Third, the RF models were assessed in the training and external validation sets. Finally, the internal prediction mechanisms of the models were explained by the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) approach. Results A total of 266 patients with renal tumors from Center 1 and 161 patients from Center 2 were included. In the training set, the AUCs of the RF models constructed from the CP, NP, EP, and TP features were 0. 886, 0. 912, 0. 930, and 0. 944, respectively. In the external validation set, the models achieved AUCs of 0. 860, 0. 821, 0. 921, and 0. 908, respectively. The “originalₛhapeFlatness” feature played the most important role in the prediction outcome for the RF model based on EP features according to the SHAP method. Conclusions The four RF models efficiently differentiated benign from malignant solid renal tumors, with the EP feature-based RF model displaying the best performance. Graphical Abstract