Impact of Preprocessing and Harmonization Methods on the Removal of Scanner Effects in Brain MRI Radiomic Features

Cancers

Emilie Chouzenoux¹  Corinne Balleyguier²  Nathalie Lassau²  Yingping Li²  Samy Ammari² 

[1] Centre de Vision Numérique, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA), Université Paris-Saclay, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France;Laboratoire d’Imagerie Biomédicale Multimodale Paris Saclay, UMR1281 Inserm, Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris-Saclay, 94805 Villejuif, France;

关键词: brain MRI radiomics;    harmonization methods;    intensity normalization;    ComBat;    reproducibility;    scanner effects;   

DOI  :  10.3390/cancers13123000

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In brain MRI radiomics studies, the non-biological variations introduced by different image acquisition settings, namely scanner effects, affect the reliability and reproducibility of the radiomics results. This paper assesses how the preprocessing methods (including N4 bias field correction and image resampling) and the harmonization methods (either the six intensity normalization methods working on brain MRI images or the ComBat method working on radiomic features) help to remove the scanner effects and improve the radiomic feature reproducibility in brain MRI radiomics. The analyses were based on in vitro datasets (homogeneous and heterogeneous phantom data) and in vivo datasets (brain MRI images collected from healthy volunteers and clinical patients with brain tumors). The results show that the ComBat method is essential and vital to remove scanner effects in brain MRI radiomic studies. Moreover, the intensity normalization methods, while not able to remove scanner effects at the radiomic feature level, still yield more comparable MRI images and improve the robustness of the harmonized features to the choice among ComBat implementations.

【 授权许可】

Unknown