Random survival forest to predict transplant-eligible newly diagnosed multiple myeloma outcome including FDG-PET radiomics: a combined analysis of two independent prospective European trials

Purpose: Fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) is included in the International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) imaging guidelines for the work-up at diagnosis and the follow-up of multiple myeloma (MM) notably because it is a reliable tool as a predictor of prognosis. Nevertheless, none of the published studies focusing on the prognostic value of PET-derived features at baseline consider tumor heterogeneity, which could be of high importance in MM. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of baseline PET-derived features in transplant-eligible newly diagnosed (TEND) MM patients enrolled in two prospective independent European randomized phase III trials using an innovative statistical random survival forest (RSF) approach.

Methods: Imaging ancillary studies of IFM/DFCI2009 and EMN02/HO95 trials formed part of the present analysis (IMAJEM and EMN02/HO95, respectively). Among all patients initially enrolled in these studies, those with a positive baseline FDG-PET/CT imaging and focal bone lesions (FLs) and/or extramedullary disease (EMD) were included in the present analysis. A total of 17 image features (visual and quantitative, reflecting whole imaging characteristics) and 5 clinical/histopathological parameters were collected. The statistical analysis was conducted using two RSF approaches (train/validation + test and additional nested cross-validation) to predict progression-free survival (PFS).

Results: One hundred thirty-nine patients were considered for this study. The final model based on the first RSF (train/validation + test) approach selected 3 features (treatment arm, hemoglobin, and SUV_maxBone Marrow (BM)) among the 22 involved initially, and two risk groups of patients (good and poor prognosis) could be defined with a mean hazard ratio of 4.3 ± 1.5 and a mean log-rank p value of 0.01 ± 0.01. The additional RSF (nested cross-validation) analysis highlighted the robustness of the proposed model across different splits of the dataset. Indeed, the first features selected using the train/validation + test approach remained the first ones over the folds with the nested approach.

Conclusion: We proposed a new prognosis model for TEND MM patients at diagnosis based on two RSF approaches.

Trial registration: IMAJEM: NCT01309334 and EMN02/HO95: NCT01134484.