A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions

Despite mammography (MG) being among the most widespread techniques in breast cancer screening, tumour detection and classification remain challenging tasks due to the high morphological variability of the lesions. The extraction of radiomics features has proved to be a promising approach in MG. How...

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Main Authors: Alfonso Maria Ponsiglione, Francesca Angelone, Francesco Amato, Mario Sansone
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-07-01
Series:Journal of Personalized Medicine
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/13/7/1104
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author Alfonso Maria Ponsiglione
Francesca Angelone
Francesco Amato
Mario Sansone
author_facet Alfonso Maria Ponsiglione
Francesca Angelone
Francesco Amato
Mario Sansone
author_sort Alfonso Maria Ponsiglione
collection DOAJ
description Despite mammography (MG) being among the most widespread techniques in breast cancer screening, tumour detection and classification remain challenging tasks due to the high morphological variability of the lesions. The extraction of radiomics features has proved to be a promising approach in MG. However, radiomics features can suffer from dependency on factors such as acquisition protocol, segmentation accuracy, feature extraction and engineering methods, which prevent the implementation of robust and clinically reliable radiomics workflow in MG. In this study, the variability and robustness of radiomics features is investigated as a function of lesion segmentation in MG images from a public database. A statistical analysis is carried out to assess feature variability and a radiomics robustness score is introduced based on the significance of the statistical tests performed. The obtained results indicate that variability is observable not only as a function of the abnormality type (calcification and masses), but also among feature categories (first-order and second-order), image view (craniocaudal and medial lateral oblique), and the type of lesions (benign and malignant). Furthermore, through the proposed approach, it is possible to identify those radiomics characteristics with a higher discriminative power between benign and malignant lesions and a lower dependency on segmentation, thus suggesting the most appropriate choice of robust features to be used as inputs to automated classification algorithms.
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spelling doaj.art-d6db9cccae0d4d60b6c9a2ef1b4cec4c2023-11-18T20:03:39ZengMDPI AGJournal of Personalized Medicine2075-44262023-07-01137110410.3390/jpm13071104A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic LesionsAlfonso Maria Ponsiglione0Francesca Angelone1Francesco Amato2Mario Sansone3Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, ItalyDepartment of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, ItalyDepartment of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, ItalyDepartment of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, ItalyDespite mammography (MG) being among the most widespread techniques in breast cancer screening, tumour detection and classification remain challenging tasks due to the high morphological variability of the lesions. The extraction of radiomics features has proved to be a promising approach in MG. However, radiomics features can suffer from dependency on factors such as acquisition protocol, segmentation accuracy, feature extraction and engineering methods, which prevent the implementation of robust and clinically reliable radiomics workflow in MG. In this study, the variability and robustness of radiomics features is investigated as a function of lesion segmentation in MG images from a public database. A statistical analysis is carried out to assess feature variability and a radiomics robustness score is introduced based on the significance of the statistical tests performed. The obtained results indicate that variability is observable not only as a function of the abnormality type (calcification and masses), but also among feature categories (first-order and second-order), image view (craniocaudal and medial lateral oblique), and the type of lesions (benign and malignant). Furthermore, through the proposed approach, it is possible to identify those radiomics characteristics with a higher discriminative power between benign and malignant lesions and a lower dependency on segmentation, thus suggesting the most appropriate choice of robust features to be used as inputs to automated classification algorithms.https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/13/7/1104radiomicsmammographybreast lesionsstatistical analysisrobustness score
spellingShingle Alfonso Maria Ponsiglione
Francesca Angelone
Francesco Amato
Mario Sansone
A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions
Journal of Personalized Medicine
radiomics
mammography
breast lesions
statistical analysis
robustness score
title A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions
title_full A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions
title_fullStr A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions
title_full_unstemmed A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions
title_short A Statistical Approach to Assess the Robustness of Radiomics Features in the Discrimination of Mammographic Lesions
title_sort statistical approach to assess the robustness of radiomics features in the discrimination of mammographic lesions
topic radiomics
mammography
breast lesions
statistical analysis
robustness score
url https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/13/7/1104
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