Comprehensive prognostic modeling of locoregional recurrence after radiotherapy for patients with locoregionally advanced hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Purpose: To propose and evaluate a comprehensive modeling approach combing radiomics, dosiomics and clinical components, for more accurate prediction of locoregional recurrence risk after radiotherapy for patients with locoregionally advanced HPSCC. Materials and methods: Clinical data of 77 HPSCC patients were retrospectively investigated, whose median follow-up duration was 23.27 (4.83-81.40) months. From the planning CT and dose distribution, 1321 radiomics and dosiomics features were extracted respectively from planning gross tumor volume (PGTV) region each patient. After stability test, feature dimension was further reduced by Principal Component Analysis (PCA), yielding Radiomic and Dosiomic Principal Components (RPCs and DPCs) respectively. Multiple Cox regression models were constructed using various combinations of RPC, DPC and clinical variables as the predictors. Akaike information criterion (AIC) and C-index were used to evaluate the performance of Cox regression models. Results: PCA was performed on 338 radiomic and 873 dosiomic features that were tested as stable (ICC Conclusion: This study provided quantitative tools and additional evidence for the personalized treatment selection and protocol optimization for HPSCC, a relatively rare cancer. By combining complementary information from radiomics, dosiomics, and clinical variables, the proposed comprehensive model provided more accurate prediction of locoregional recurrence risk after radiotherapy.