Non-Invasive MGMT Status Prediction in GBM Cancer Using Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) Radiomics Features: Univariate and Multivariate Machine Learning Radiogenomics Analysis

Background and aim: This study aimed to predict methylation status of the O-6 methyl guanine-DNA methyl transferase (MGMT) gene promoter status by using MRI radiomics features, as well as univariate and multivariate analysis. Material and Methods: Eighty-two patients who had a MGMT methylation status were include in this study. Tumor were manually segmented in the four regions of MR images, a) whole tumor, b) active/enhanced region, c) necrotic regions and d) edema regions (E). About seven thousand radiomics features were extracted for each patient. Feature selection and classifier were used to predict MGMT status through different machine learning algorithms. The area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used for model evaluations. Results: Regarding univariate analysis, the Inverse Variance feature from gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) in Whole Tumor segment with 4.5 mm Sigma of Laplacian of Gaussian filter with AUC: 0.71 (p-value: 0.002) was found to be the best predictor. For multivariate analysis, the decision tree classifier with Select from Model feature selector and LOG filter in Edema region had the highest performance (AUC: 0.78), followed by Ada Boost classifier with Select from Model feature selector and LOG filter in Edema region (AUC: 0.74). Conclusion: This study showed that radiomics using machine learning algorithms is a feasible, noninvasive approach to predict MGMT methylation status in GBM cancer patients Keywords: Radiomics, Radiogenomics, GBM, MRI, MGMT