Construction of a classification model for liver fibrosis in MAFLD based on multiparametric MRI radiomics and machine learning: A rat study.

BACKGROUND

Liver fibrosis (LF) severity is an important factor in the clinical management and prognosis of patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). Conventional imaging modalities and routine clinical parameters may lack sufficient precision for accurate fibrosis staging. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) provides a noninvasive, quantitative approach that may improve fibrosis assessment.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to develop and validate a machine learning-based classification model for staging LF severity in MAFLD using mpMRI radiomics in a rat model.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A prospective mpMRI study was conducted on 160 male Sprague-Dawley rats with histologically confirmed LF of varying severity, including healthy controls. Imaging was performed using T2-weighted fat-suppressed (T2-FS) and IDEAL-IQ sequences to derive proton density fat fraction, in-phase, and out-of-phase images. Radiomic features were extracted and screened to identify the most discriminative subset, which were then integrated with six machine learning classifiers-logistic regression (LR), decision tree (DT), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), LightGBM, and AdaBoost, using a 7:3 training-to-validation split. Three models were constructed: conventional, deep learning-based, and hybrid. Diagnostic performance was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), decision curve analysis (DCA), net reclassification improvement (NRI), and calibration curves. The optimal model was further assessed with a confusion matrix and benchmarked against the best convolutional neural network (CNN) model. Interpretability was examined via SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis.

RESULTS

All three models showed good diagnostic performance for staging LF in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) and outperformed the CNN model. The hybrid model yielded the highest AUC in distinguishing advanced from non-advanced fibrosis (0.982, 95% CI: 0.947-1.000) with an accuracy of 88%. SHAP analysis indicated that deep learning-derived features made the greatest contribution to predictions and were positively associated with increased risk of MASH and fibrosis progression.

CONCLUSION

In a rat model of MAFLD, mpMRI-based radiomics combined with machine learning demonstrated promising diagnostic performance for classifying MASH and staging associated LF. This noninvasive approach may help differentiate advanced from non-advanced in MASH, which may provide supportive information and has potential to support clinical decision-making.