Abstract
To develop a machine learning-based predictive model for local recurrence after radiotherapy in patients with gliomas, with interpretability enhanced through SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). We retrospectively enrolled 145 patients with pathologically confirmed gliomas who underwent brain radiotherapy (training: validation = 102:43). Physiological and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were used to define habitat regions. A total of 2153 radiomic features were extracted from each MRI sequence in each habitat region, respectively. Relief and Recursive Feature Elimination were used for radiomic feature selection. Support vector machine (SVM) and random forest models incorporating clinical and radiomic features were constructed for each habitat region. The SHAP method was used to explain the predictive model. In the training cohort and validation cohort, the Physiological_Habitat1 (e-THRIVE)_radiomic SVM model demonstrated the best AUC of 0.703 (95% CI 0.569-0.836) and 0.670 (95% CI 0.623-0.717) compared to the other radiomic models. The SHAP summary plot and SHAP force plot were used to interpret the best-performing Physiological_Habitat1 (e-THRIVE)_radiomic SVM model. Radiomic features derived from the Physiological_Habitat1 (e-THRIVE) were predictive of local recurrence in glioma patients following radiotherapy. The SHAP method provided insights into how the tumor microenvironment might influence the effectiveness of radiotherapy in postoperative gliomas.