The Application Status of Radiomics-Based Machine Learning in Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background Over the past few years, radiomics for the detection of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) has been extensively studied. However, systematic evidence is lacking in the use of radiomics in this domain, which hinders its further development. Objective To address this gap, our study delved into the status quo and application value of radiomics in ICC and aimed to offer evidence-based support to promote its systematic application in this field. Methods PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase were comprehensively retrieved to determine relevant original studies. The study quality was appraised through the Radiomics Quality Score. In addition, subgroup analyses were undertaken according to datasets (training and validation sets), imaging sources, and model types. Results Fifty-eight studies encompassing 12,903 patients were eligible, with an average Radiomics Quality Score of 9.21. Radiomics-based machine learning (ML) was mainly used to diagnose ICC (n=30), microvascular invasion (n=8), gene mutations (n=5), perineural invasion (PNI; n=2), lymph node (LN) positivity (n=2), and tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs; n=2), and predict overall survival (n=6) and recurrence (n=9). The C-index, sensitivity (SEN), and specificity (SPC) of the ML model developed using clinical features (CFs) for ICC detection were 0.762 (95% CI 0.728-0.796), 0.72 (95% CI 0.66-0.77), and 0.72 (95% CI 0.66-0.78), respectively, in the validation dataset. In contrast, the C-index, SEN, and SPC of the radiomics-based ML model for detecting ICC were 0.853 (95% CI 0.824-0.882), 0.80 (95% CI 0.73-0.85), and 0.88 (95% CI 0.83-0.92), respectively. The C-index, SEN, and SPC of ML constructed using both radiomics and CFs for diagnosing ICC were 0.912 (95% CI 0.889-0.935), 0.77 (95% CI 0.72-0.81), and 0.90 (95% CI 0.86-0.92). The deep learning–based model that integrated both radiomics and CFs yielded a notably higher C-index of 0.924 (0.863-0.984) in the task of detecting ICC. Additional analyses showed that radiomics demonstrated promising accuracy in predicting overall survival and recurrence, as well as in diagnosing microvascular invasion, gene mutations, PNI, LN positivity, and TLSs. Conclusions Radiomics-based ML demonstrates excellent accuracy in the clinical diagnosis of ICC. However, studies involving specific tasks, such as diagnosing PNI and TLSs, are still scarce. The limited research on deep learning has hindered both further analysis and the development of subgroup analyses across various models. Furthermore, challenges such as data heterogeneity and interpretability caused by segmentation and imaging parameter variations require further optimization and refinement. Future research should delve into the application of radiomics to enhance its clinical use. Its integration into clinical practice holds great promise for improving decision-making, boosting diagnostic and treatment accuracy, minimizing unnecessary tests, and optimizing health care resource usage.