Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To establish a model for discrimination between benign and malignant gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) by analyzing the texture features extracted from computed tomography (CT) images. METHODS: The CT datasets were collected from 110 patients with GIST (including 80 as the training cohort and 30 as the validation cohort). Feature set reduction was executed with the 0.632 + bootstrap method in the initial feature set followed by stepwise forward feature selection in the feature subset, and the classification model was generated by logistic regression. RESULTS: The 6-texture-featurebased classification model successfully discriminated between benign and malignant GIST in both the training and validation cohorts with AUCs of 0.93 and 0.91, sensitivity of 0.88 and 0.87, specificity of 0.85 and 0.86, and accuracy of 0.87 and 0.86 in the two cohorts, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This classification model established by radiomics analysis is capable of discrimination between benign and malignant GIST to provide assistance in preoperative diagnosis of GIST.