Feasibility of Differential Dose-Volume Histogram Features in Multivariate Prediction Model for Radiation Pneumonitis Occurrence

Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce differential dose-volume histogram (dDVH) features into machine learning for radiation pneumonitis (RP) prediction and to demonstrate the predictive performance of the developed model based on integrated cumulative dose-volume histogram (cDVH) and dDVH features. Materials and methods: cDVH and dDVH features were calculated for 153 patients treated for non-small-cell lung cancer with 60-66 Gy and dose bins ranging from 2 to 8 Gy in 2 Gy increments. RP prediction models were developed with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) through fivefold cross-validation. Results: Among the 152 patients in the patient cohort, 41 presented >= grade 2 RP. The interdependencies between cDVH features evaluated by Spearman's correlation were significantly resolved by the inclusion of dDVH features. The average area under curve for the RP prediction model using cDVH and dDVH model was 0.73, which was higher than the average area under curve using cDVH model for 0.62 with statistically significance (p < 0.01). An analysis using the entire set of regression coefficients determined by LASSO demonstrated that dDVH features represented four of the top five frequently selected features in the model fitting, regardless of dose bin. Conclusions: We successfully developed an RP prediction model that integrated cDVH and dDVH features. The best RP prediction model was achieved using dDVH (dose bin = 4 Gy) features in the machine learning process.