Development of a non-contrast CT-based radiomics nomogram for early prediction of delayed cerebral ischemia in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage

BACKGROUNDS: Delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) is a significant complication following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH), leading to poor prognosis and high mortality. This study developed a non-contrast CT (NCCT)-based radiomics nomogram for early DCI prediction in aSAH patients. METHODS: Three hundred seventy-seven aSAH patients were included in this retrospective study. Radiomic features from the baseline CTs were extracted using PyRadiomics. Feature selection was conducted using t-tests, Pearson correlation, and Lasso regression to identify those features most closely associated with DCI. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify independent clinical and demographic risk factors. Eight machine learning algorithms were applied to construct radiomics-only and radiomics-clinical fusion nomogram models. RESULTS: The nomogram integrated the radscore and three clinically significant parameters (aneurysm and aneurysm treatment and admission Hunt-Hess score), with the Support Vector Machine model yielding the highest performance in the validation set. The radiomics model and nomogram produced AUCs of 0.696 (95% CI: 0.578-0.815) and 0.831 (95% CI: 0.739-0.923), respectively. The nomogram achieved an accuracy of 0.775, a sensitivity of 0.750, a specificity of 0.795, and an F1 score of 0.750. CONCLUSION: The NCCT-based radiomics nomogram demonstrated high predictive performance for DCI in aSAH patients, providing a valuable tool for early DCI identification and formulating appropriate treatment strategies. CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: Not applicable.