To explore the ccRCC clinical and immune characteristics correlated with IL-23 expression level and build pre-operative prediction models based on contrast CT scans.
The study included the cancer genome atlas kidney renal clear cell carcinoma cases to build a bioinformatics cohort. The cases with qualified contrast CT images were selected as radiographic and radiomics cohort. The IL-23 expression level groups were defined by median-based thresholding. The clinical characteristics were compared between groups. The impacts of IL-23 on immune microenvironment composition were measured via the CIBERSORT. Two radiologists evaluated the pre-operative contrast CT images. The radiomics features were automatically extracted. IL-23 group-specific radiographic and radiomics features were collected and used for prediction model establishment via Orange Data Mining Toolbox. P < 0.05 was set as statistically significant.
For total, 530 ccRCC cases were included. The IL-23 group was significantly associated with survival, histologic grade, AJCC tumor stage, AJCC cancer stage, and plasma calcium level. Except for Treg and other T cells, IL-23 showed correlation with NK cell, mast cell, monocyte infiltration. Axial length was the only significant radiographic measurement between IL-23 groups. The radiomics features established an IL-23 group prediction model with the highest 10-fold cross-verification AUC of 0.842.
The clear cell renal cell carcinoma IL-23 expression level had prognosis and immune microenvironment correlation and could be predicted by pre-operative radiomics features.
Urology journal. 2021 Oct 31 [Epub ahead of print]
Lianghong Jiao, Xiaofeng Wang, Yibo Ying, Kewei Yang
Department of Radiology, Ningbo Urology and Nephrology Hospital, Ningbo, China. ., Department of Radiology, Ningbo Urology and Nephrology Hospital, Ningbo, China. ., Department of Radiology, Ningbo Urology and Nephrology Hospital, Ningbo, China. ., Department of Radiology, Ningbo Urology and Nephrology Hospital, Ningbo, China. .