Effects of parametric feature maps on the reproducibility of radiomics from different fields of view in cardiac magnetic resonance cine images– a clinical and experimental study setting

In cardiac MRI, the field of view (FOV) is adapted to the individual patient's size, influencing spatial resolution and myocardial radiomics. This study aimed to investigate the effects of parametric feature maps on radiomics derived from cine images acquired with different FOV sizes on individuals without myocardial pathologies. In the clinical setting, cardiac MRI scans from clinical care were screened retrospectively for patients without pathological findings, neither in the MRI nor the medical history or follow-up, resulting in 61 included patients. In the experimental setting, 12 healthy volunteers were prospectively examined on a 1.5 Tesla MRI scanner with cine images acquired with three different FOVs (256 × 329 mm, 279 × 359 mm, 302 × 390 mm). One midventricular end-diastolic short-axis slice of the non-enhanced cine images was extracted for healthy volunteers and patients. The left ventricular myocardium was encompassed with regions of interest (ROIs). Ninety-three features were extracted using PyRadiomics. Images were converted to parametric radiomic feature maps using pretested software. ROIs were copied to the maps to retrieve the feature quantity. The variability of features across the different FOVs from the original images and feature maps was assessed with coefficients of variation (COVs) and rated stable at up to 10%. When derived from the original images, out of the 93 extracted features, only 24 (patients) and 29 (volunteers) revealed COVs < 10%. When extracted from the parametric maps, the number of stable features increased by 63% and 66%, with 39 (patients) and 48 (volunteers) features showing COVs < 10%, respectively. Software-computed parametric feature maps improve the reproducibility of radiomics across different FOVs in cardiac cine images of individuals without myocardial pathologies. Prospective investigations with different FOVs of a patient collective with myocardial pathologies could enhance the generalizability of the findings.