To accurately predict lymph node metastasis in patients with mass-forming intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma by using CT radiomics features of tumor habitat subregions.

Background: This study aims to introduce the concept of habitat subregions and construct an accurate prediction model by analyzing refined medical images, to predict lymph node metastasis (LNM) in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) before surgery, and to provide personalized support for clinical decision-making.

Methods: Clinical, radiological, and pathological data from ICC patients were retrospectively collected. Using information from the arterial and venous phases of multisequence CT images, tumor habitat subregions were delineated through the K-means clustering algorithm.