Deep learning-based automatic segmentation of meningioma from multiparametric MRI for preoperative meningioma differentiation using radiomic features: a multicentre study.

Objectives: Develop and evaluate a deep learning-based automatic meningioma segmentation method for preoperative meningioma differentiation using radiomic features.

Methods: A retrospective multicentre inclusion of MR examinations (T1/T2-weighted and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted imaging) was conducted. Data from centre 1 were allocated to training (n = 307, age = 50.94 ± 11.51) and internal testing (n = 238, age = 50.70 ± 12.72) cohorts, and data from centre 2 external testing cohort (n = 64, age = 48.45 ± 13.59). A modified attention U-Net was trained for meningioma segmentation. Segmentation accuracy was evaluated by five quantitative metrics. The agreement between radiomic features from manual and automatic segmentations was assessed using intra class correlation coefficient (ICC). After univariate and minimum-redundancy-maximum-relevance feature selection, L1-regularized logistic regression models for differentiating between low-grade (I) and high-grade (II and III) meningiomas were separately constructed using manual and automatic segmentations; their performances were evaluated using ROC analysis.

Results: Dice of meningioma segmentation for the internal testing cohort were 0.94 ± 0.04 and 0.91 ± 0.05 for tumour volumes in contrast-enhanced T1-weighted and T2-weighted images, respectively; those for the external testing cohort were 0.90 ± 0.07 and 0.88 ± 0.07. Features extracted using manual and automatic segmentations agreed well, for both the internal (ICC = 0.94, interquartile range: 0.88-0.97) and external (ICC = 0.90, interquartile range: 0.78-70.96) testing cohorts. AUC of radiomic model with automatic segmentation was comparable with that of the model with manual segmentation for both the internal (0.95 vs. 0.93, p = 0.176) and external (0.88 vs. 0.91, p = 0.419) testing cohorts.

Conclusions: The developed deep learning-based segmentation method enables automatic and accurate extraction of meningioma from multiparametric MR images and can help deploy radiomics for preoperative meningioma differentiation in clinical practice.

Key Points: • A deep learning-based method was developed for automatic segmentation of meningioma from multiparametric MR images. • The automatic segmentation method enabled accurate extraction of meningiomas and yielded radiomic features that were highly consistent with those that were obtained using manual segmentation. • High-grade meningiomas were preoperatively differentiated from low-grade meningiomas using a radiomic model constructed on features from automatic segmentation.