Machine Learning Models for Predicting Facial Nerve Palsy in Parotid Gland Surgery for Benign Tumors.

BACKGROUND: Despite the increasing use of intraoperative facial nerve monitoring during parotid gland surgery (PGS) and the improvement in the preoperative radiological assessment, facial nerve injury (FNI) remains the most severe complication after PGS. Until now, no studies have been published regarding the application of machine learning (ML) for predicting FNI after PGS. We hypothesize that ML would improve the prediction of patients at risk. METHODS: Patients who underwent PGS for benign tumors between June 2010 and June 2019 were included. RESULTS: Regarding prediction accuracy and performance of each ML algorithm, the K-nearest neighbor and the random forest achieved the highest sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value F-score, receiver operating characteristic (ROC)-area under the ROC curve, and accuracy globally. The K-nearest neighbor algorithm achieved performance values above 0.9 for specificity, negative predictive value, F-score and ROC-area under the ROC curve, and the highest sensitivity and positive predictive value. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that ML prediction models can provide evidence-based predictions about the risk of FNI to otolaryngologists and patients. It is hoped that such algorithms, which use clinical, radiological, histological, and cytological information, can improve the information given to patients before surgery so that they can be better informed of any potential complications.

Radiomics and Texture Analysis in Laryngeal Cancer. Looking for New Frontiers in Precision Medicine through Imaging Analysis.

Radiomics and texture analysis represent a new option in our biomarkers arsenal. These techniques extract a large number of quantitative features, analyzing their properties to incorporate them in clinical decision-making. Laryngeal cancer represents one of the most frequent cancers in the head and neck area. We hypothesized that radiomics features can be included as a laryngeal cancer precision medicine tool, as it is able to non-invasively characterize the overall tumor accounting for heterogeneity, being a prognostic and/or predictive biomarker derived from routine, standard of care, imaging data, and providing support during the follow up of the patient, in some cases avoiding the need for biopsies. The larynx represents a unique diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for clinicians due to its complex tridimensional anatomical structure. Its complex regional and functional anatomy makes it necessary to enhance our diagnostic tools in order to improve decision-making protocols, aimed at better survival and functional results. For this reason, this technique can be an option for monitoring the evolution of the disease, especially in surgical and non-surgical organ preservation treatments. This concise review article will explain basic concepts about radiomics and discuss recent progress and results related to laryngeal cancer.