METHODS
Between September 2016 and April 2021, 137 cases and 148 lesions in which SBRT was applied by
Eşkişehir Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine Radiation Oncology Department were evaluated.
To create a balanced data set, Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique technique was used and 200
lesions were evaluated. Logistic Regression (LR), multilayer perceptron Classifier, Extreme Gradient
Boosting, Support Vector Classifier, Random Forest Classifier ,and Gaussian Naive Bayes algorithms
were used. The data sets are divided into 85% training and 15% prediction sets. Models were created
using the training set and validated using the prediction set.
RESULTS
Complete response was obtained in 41 tumors out of 148 tumors. The median OS after SBRT is 18 (2-61)
months, and progression-free survival is 16 (0-61) months. Important variables are tumor diameter,
NLR, presence of biopsy at diagnosis, tumor location and type, diagnosis, and histopathology. LR algorithm
was determined as the best estimating algorithm with 80% accuracy (Confidence Interval, CI:
0.65-0.94, ROC AUC: 0.60), 66% sensitive and 90% specificity.
CONCLUSION
In order to use the current algorithm in clinical practice, it is necessary to increase the diversity of data
and the number of patients by sharing data between centers.
Keywords: Artificial intelligence; lung cancer; response prediction; stereotactic body radiotherapy
Primary tumor control and distant metastasis rates
in early-stage lung cancer are similar for SBRT and surgery.
Overall survival (OS) is lower for SBRT compared
to surgery. This is largely attributable to inadequate cardiopulmonary
function as the primary selection criterion
for SBRT and the reduced survival of these patients
due to their comorbid disease, independent of lung cancer.
The lung is the second-most common site of metastatic
focus. It is estimated that 20-54% of malignant
tumors that develop in other parts of the body will metastasize
to the lungs.[
Treatment Characteristics
Different fractionation schemes were used according
to the location of the tumor. While more hypofractionated
regimens are preferred in ultracentral tumors,
10-12 Gy x 5 fraction regimens are preferred in peripheral
tumors. 3D CBCT images were taken before
and after beam was on. During SBRT, no simultaneous
chemotherapy was applied. At least 48 h were interrupted between fractions. Cases were evaluated in the
outpatient clinic twice a week for possible toxicity.
Selected Variables
Follow-up after Radiotherapy
Thoracic CT imaging was performed first at 6 weeks
after RT and then at each follow-up to assess response
and toxicity. All patients underwent FDG PET CT examination
3 months and 1 year after SBRT to evaluate
the response. Cases with suspected recurrence were
evaluated in multidisciplinary councils. Tumors were
measured at each follow-up visit using the Response
Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors, and the response
was graded according to the international criteria proposed
in the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors
Guideline version 1.1.5.[
Artificial Intelligence and Statistics
A total of 200 lesions were evaluated in the present
study. Logistic Regression (LR), multilayer perceptron Classifier (MLP), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB),
Support Vector Classifier (SVC), Random Forest Classifier
,and Gaussian Naïve Bayes algorithms are used.
After the correlation analysis, the permutation-based
variable selection method was used as the variable selection
method. Permutation-based variable selection
is defined as the reduction in the model score when
a single variable value is randomly mixed. This process
breaks the relationship between the variable and
the target, so the decrease in the model score indicates
how much the model is dependent on the feature. This
technique can be calculated many times with different
permutations of the variables in the model.[
In statistics, the ROC curve is a graphical plot
showing the diagnostic ability of the dual classification
system. AUC indicates the classification performance
of the installed model and takes a value between 0
and 1. AUC value close to 1 means that the classification
performance of the model is high.[
Statistical analyzes and machine learning algorithms
were performed using Python software (Python
Software Foundation. Python Language Reference,
version 3.5. Available at http://www.python.
org) and Scikit Learn library.[
The patients were immobilized in the supine position
with their hands on the head and with a T bar/
Wingboard. For all patients, a 4DCT was acquired on
a Somatom Definition AS® comprising ten respiratory
phases, where phases are indicated in percent of the
breathing cycle. Computed tomography (CT) images
of all cases were taken with a cross-sectional interval
of 2 mm. Average CT (avgCT) and maximum intensity
projection (MIP) datasets were generated from
the phases. The ITV was contoured on the 4DCT MIP
(4DCT ITV), and evaluated on the selected breathing
phase. A 3-mm isotropic margin was placed around the
ITV to create the planning target volume (PTV). Treatment
plans were generated for a Varian TrueBeam® linear
accelerator with a 6 MV flattening filter-free beam.
Planning criteria were based on RTOG 0915[
A total of 18 variables were evaluated to predict the response
to lung SBRT, which are; tumor location type
(central, ultracentral, peripheral, chest wall), diagnosis
(early stage/relapse/metastasis), age, gender, Karnofsky
Performance Score, smoking history, history of chronic
disease, presence of biopsy at diagnosis, histopathology,
tumor location (right/upper left/middle/lower),
tumor largest diameter, GTV, PTV, fraction dose, fraction
number, BED10, neutrophil/lymphocyte (NLR)
and platelet/lymphocyte ratio.
Patients were called for control 6 and 12 weeks after
SBRT, then every 2 years, every 3 months, every 6
months for the next 2 years, and annually thereafter.
Physical examinations were performed at each followup
visit.
Patients with missing data were excluded from the
study. In case the sample sizes of the subgroups of the
dependent variable to be estimated in machine learning
are not equal, biased estimations are made as a result of
overfitting. To get rid of this situation, it is necessary
to create a balanced data set.[
148 tumors of 137 cases were evaluated. The number
of ultracentral/central/peripheral/chest wall tumors was
4 (2%), 12 (8%), 114 (77%), and 18 (12%), respectively.
The median tumor diameter is 20 (5-50) mm. Tissue diagnosis
was present in 48 (32%) of the tumors. When
we look at the tumor diagnoses, the numbers of earlystage
lung cancer, recurrent lung cancer, solid single
lung metastasis, and oligometastatic lung cancer were 56
(37%), 43 (29%), 48 (32%), and 1 (0.6%), respectively.
Median GTV and PTV volumes were 7.9 (min: 0.5, max:
72) cc and 23.5 (min: 1.94 max: 122) cc, respectively. The
median BED10 value was 100 (min:72, max:132) Gy.
The median NLR is 2.7 8min: 0.47, max: 19.7). Tumor
and treatment characteristics are summarized in Table
Important variables are tumor diameter, NLR, presence
of biopsy at diagnosis, tumor location and type, diagnosis,
and histopathology. LR algorithm is determined
as the best estimating algorithm with 80% accuracy (Confidence
Interval, CI: 0.65-0.94, ROC AUC: 0.60), 66%
sensitive and 90% specificity. The ACC for MLP, XGB,
SVC, RF, and Gaussian NB, among other evaluated algorithms,
are 76%, 43%, 46%, 60%, and 46%, respectively.
ROC AUC graphs of the algorithms are given in Figure
ANN: artificial neural network; XGB: Extreme Gradient
Boosting; SVC: Support Vector Classifier; AUC: Area under
the curve.
The confusion matrix of the LR algorithm is given
in Table
Hellman and Weichselbaum introduced the term
oligometastasis in 1995 to describe the intermediate stage
of cancer between localized and metastatic cancer, with
the oligometastasis status as an appropriate stage for local
therapy with possible improvement in OS. Some of
the most convincing results have been obtained in surgical
resection of colorectal cancer (CRC) oligometastases,
where 5-year OS rates of 23-47% have been reported.
However, favorable survival rates have also been observed
after local treatment for non-CRC metastases. Increasing
numbers of systemic anticancer agents have proven effective
in the treatment of oligo-metastatic cancer, but the
local treatment of metastases is still believed to be important
to ensure long-term survival. Although surgery is
preferred, many patients with metastases are not suitable
for surgery due to medical reasons and/or the location
and number of metastases. Minimally invasive local ablative
therapy, such as SBRT, will often be recommended
for unsuitable patients.[25] However, it is still not clear
in which early-stage cancer SBRT is superior in surgery or which oligometastatic or oligorecurrent patient is
suitable for SBRT. The importance of tumor size in the
staging and prognosis of many tumors has been demonstrated
by studies.[
Tumor microenvironment and especially inflammatory
response and systemic inflammation play an
important role in cancer development and progression.
[28] Parameters that can be measured in blood and
show systemic inflammation can be used as a biochemical
marker to evaluate prognosis in cancer. Recently, elevated
peripheral neutrophil-lymphocyte (NLR) ratio
has been accepted as a poor prognostic indicator in various
cancers.[
Machine learning classification algorithms (classifiers)
for the prediction of treatment response are becoming
more popular in the radiotherapy literature. The
general machine learning literature provides evidence in
favor of some classifier families (random forest, support
vector machine, gradient boosting) in terms of classification
performance. Currently, there is no consensus on
an optimal classification algorithm. Researchers choose
algorithms for a variety of reasons: researcher"s experience,
use in the literature, data characteristics and quality,
default feature dependencies, availability of simple
implementations, and model interpretability. One objective
criterion for selecting a classifier is to maximize
a chosen performance metric, for example, discrimination
(expressed by the area under the ROC curve,
AUC). In a study by Deist et al.,[
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
Conflict of Interest: All authors declared no conflict of interest.
Ethics Committee Approval: The study was approved by the Eskişehir Osmangazi University Non-Invasive Clinical Research Ethics Committee (no: 30, date: 21/02/2023).
Financial Support: None declared.
Authorship contributions: Concept - D.E., M.Y.; Design - D.E., M.Y., M.M.; Supervision - D.E., M.Y., M.M.; Funding - D.E.; Materials - D.K.; Data collection and/or processing - D.E., M.Y., D.K., Ö.Ç., G.A.; Data analysis and/ or interpretation - D.E., G.A., M.Y., M.M., Ö.Ç.; Literature search - D.E., M.Y., G.A.; Writing - D.E., M.Y.; Critical review - D.E., M.Y., M.M., G.A.