Radiomics-based Artificial Intelligence System to Predict Neoadjuvant Treatment Response in Rectal Cancer (MRAI-pCR)

This is a multicenter, prospective, observational clinical study for validation of a radiomics-based artificial intelligence (AI) prediction model. Patients who have been pathologically diagnosed as rectal adenocarcinoma and defined as clinical II-III staging without distant metastasis will be enrolled from the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical College and Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Affiliated by Zhejiang University School of Medicine. All participants should follow a standard treatment protocol, including concurrent neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT), total mesorectum excision (TME) surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) examination should be completed before the administration of nCRT treatment. The tumor volumes at high solution T2-weighted, contrast-enhanced T1-weighted and diffusion weighted images will be manually delineated, respectively. The outlined MRI images will be captured by the radiomics prediction model to generate a predicted response ("predicted pCR" vs. "predicted non-pCR") of each patient, whereas the true response ("confirmed pCR" vs. "confirmed non-pCR") is derived from pathologic reports after TME surgery serving as the gold standard for evaluation. The prediction accuracy, specificity, sensitivity and Area Under Curve (AUC) of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves will be calculated. This study is aimed to provide a reliable and accurate AI system to predict the pathologic tumor response to nCRT before its administration, which might facilitate the identification of pCR candidates for further precision therapy among patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.