Quality of science and reporting of radiomics in oncologic studies: room for improvement according to radiomics quality score and TRIPOD statement.

A new interesting article has been published in Eur Radiol. 2019 Jul 26. doi: 10.1007/s00330-019-06360-z. and titled:

Quality of science and reporting of radiomics in oncologic studies: room for improvement according to radiomics quality score and TRIPOD statement.

Authors of this article are:

Park JE, Kim D, Kim HS, Park SY, Kim JY, Cho SJ, Shin JH, Kim JH.

A summary of the article is shown below:

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate radiomics studies according to radiomics quality score (RQS) and Transparent Reporting of a multivariable prediction model for Individual Prognosis Or Diagnosis (TRIPOD) to provide objective measurement of radiomics research.MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed and Embase were searched for studies published in high clinical imaging journals until December 2018 using the terms “radiomics” and “radiogenomics.” Studies were scored against the items in the RQS and TRIPOD guidelines. Subgroup analyses were performed for journal type (clinical vs. imaging), intended use (diagnostic vs. prognostic), and imaging modality (CT vs. MRI), and articles were compared using Fisher’s exact test and Mann-Whitney analysis.RESULTS: Seventy-seven articles were included. The mean RQS score was 26.1% of the maximum (9.4 out of 36). The RQS was low in demonstration of clinical utility (19.5%), test-retest analysis (6.5%), prospective study (3.9%), and open science (3.9%). None of the studies conducted a phantom or cost-effectiveness analysis. The adherence rate for TRIPOD was 57.8% (mean) and was particularly low in reporting title (2.6%), stating study objective in and introduction (7.8% and 16.9%), blind assessment of outcome (14.3%), sample size (6.5%), and missing data (11.7%) categories. Studies in clinical journals scored higher and more frequently adopted external validation than imaging journals.CONCLUSIONS: The overall scientific quality and reporting of radiomics studies is insufficient. Scientific improvements need to be made to feature reproducibility, analysis of clinical utility, and open science categories. Reporting of study objectives, blind assessment, sample size, and missing data is deemed to be necessary.KEY POINTS: • The overall scientific quality and reporting of radiomics studies is insufficient. • The RQS was low in demonstration of clinical utility, test-retest analysis, prospective study, and open science. • Room for improvement was shown in TRIPOD in stating study objective in and introduction, blind assessment of outcome, sample size, and missing data categories.

Check out the article’s website on Pubmed for more information:

[link-preview url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31350588 forceshot=true]

This article is a good source of information and a good way to become familiar with topics such as: Computed tomography;Machine learning;Magnetic resonance imaging;Neoplasm;Quality improvement.

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