Systematic review with radiomics quality score of cholangiocarcinoma: an EuSoMII Radiomics Auditing Group Initiative

Abstract

Objectives

To systematically review current research applications of radiomics in patients with cholangiocarcinoma and to assess the quality of CT and MRI radiomics studies.

Methods

A systematic search was conducted on PubMed/Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus databases to identify original studies assessing radiomics of cholangiocarcinoma on CT and/or MRI. Three readers with different experience levels independently assessed quality of the studies using the radiomics quality score (RQS). Subgroup analyses were performed according to journal type, year of publication, quartile and impact factor (from the Journal Citation Report database), type of cholangiocarcinoma, imaging modality, and number of patients.

Results

A total of 38 original studies including 6242 patients (median 134 patients) were selected. The median RQS was 9 (corresponding to 25.0% of the total RQS; IQR 1–13) for reader 1, 8 (22.2%, IQR 3–12) for reader 2, and 10 (27.8%; IQR 5–14) for reader 3. The inter-reader agreement was good with an ICC of 0.75 (95% CI 0.62–0.85) for the total RQS. All studies were retrospective and none of them had phantom assessment, imaging at multiple time points, nor performed cost-effectiveness analysis. The RQS was significantly higher in studies published in journals with impact factor > 4 (median 11 vs. 4, p = 0.048 for reader 1) and including more than 100 patients (median 11.5 vs. 0.5, p < 0.001 for reader 1).

Conclusions

Quality of radiomics studies on cholangiocarcinoma is insufficient based on the radiomics quality score. Future research should consider prospective studies with a standardized methodology, validation in multi-institutional external cohorts, and open science data.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13244-023-01365-1.

Key points

• The quality of current radiomics studies on cholangiocarcinoma is insufficient, with a median radiomics quality score of 8–10, corresponding to 22–28% of the ideal quality score.

• None of the current studies conducted phantom assessment, imaging at multiple time points, prospective registration in a trial database, nor cost-effectiveness analysis.

• The inter-reader agreement of the radiomics quality score is good (ICC of 0.75; 95% CI 0.62–0.85) among readers with different levels of experience.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13244-023-01365-1.