Diagnostic performance based on MRI for preoperative of vessels encapsulating tumor clusters in hepatocellular carcinoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

[OBJECTIVE] Vessels encapsulating tumor clusters (VETC) pattern is a unique pattern of vascular invasion that has been shown to be a poor prognostic factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The purpose of this review and meta-analysis was to explore diagnostic performance between non-radiomics and radiomics model based on MRI for preoperative of vessels encapsulating tumor clusters (VETC) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

[METHODS] All included articles were obtained from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane library as of September 30, 2024. The QUADAS-2 tool was used to assess methodological quality of eligible studies. The pooled data was using a mixed effects model within a 95% confidence interval (CI). Diagnostic performance was represented by summary receiver-operating characteristic curves and the area under the curve (AUC).

[RESULTS] A total of 14 studies (10 non-radiomics and 6 radiomics) with 2961 HCC patients were included in this study. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of non radiomics model were 0.80 (95%CI:0.76-0.83) and 0.74(95%CI:0.69-0.78), with AUC of 0.84 (95%CI:0.80-0.87); whereas that of radiomics model was 0.88 (95%CI:0.83- 0.91) and 0.86 (95%CI:0.81-0.90) with AUC of 0.93 (95%CI:0.91-0.95).

[CONCLUSIONS] Radiomics model performed better than non-radiomics model based on MRI in preoperative prediction of VETC-positive HCC, but there was heterogeneity between studies, which needs to be interpreted with caution.