Comparing a Fully Automated Hybrid Approach on MRI and FibroScan for Triaging Clinically Significant Liver Fibrosis:A Multi-center Cohort Study

Motivation: MRI-derived texture analysis could assess liver fibrosis effectively, yet lacking large-scale datasets for validation or comparisons with transient elastography-based liver stiffness measurement (TE-LSM). Goal(s): develop and validate the combined radiomics-clinic model (CoRC) on MRI for triaging clinically significant liver fibrosis (≥ F2), comparing or combining with TE-LSM. Approach: This retrospective multi-center study recruited 595 patients with biopsy proven liver fibrosis. CoRC model integrated Radiomics features extracted from the ResUNet-based automated entire liver segmentation and clinical variables with multivariate logistic regression. Results: Additive value of CoRC model to TE-LSM was explored with combined AUC of 0.86, and 0.81 in the internal, and temporal sets. Impact: Complementary information provided by Radiomics features could be in combination with clinical risk factors in order to assist clinicians in assessing liver fibrosis comprehensively. CoRC models exhibited promising diagnostic performances for clinically significant liver fibrosis, complementary to TE-LSM.