OCT-Derived Radiomic Features Predict Anti-VEGF Response and Durability in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Purpose: No established biomarkers currently exist for therapeutic efficacy and durability of anti-VEGF therapy in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). This study evaluated radiomic-based quanti-tative OCT biomarkers that may be predictive of anti-VEGF treatment response and durability.Design: Assessment of baseline biomarkers using machine learning (ML) classifiers to predict tolerance to anti-VEGF therapy. Participants: Eighty-one participants with treatment-naive nAMD from the OSPREY study, including 15 super responders (patients who achieved and maintained retinal fluid resolution) and 66 non -super responders (patients who did not achieve or maintain retinal fluid resolution).Methods: A total of 962 texture-based radiomic features were extracted from fluid, subretinal hyperreflective material (SHRM), and different retinal tissue compartments of OCT scans. The top 8 features, chosen by the minimum redundancy maximum relevance feature selection method, were evaluated using 4 ML classifiers in a cross-validated approach to distinguish between the 2 patient groups. Longitudinal assessment of changes in different texture-based radiomic descriptors (delta-texture features) between baseline and month 3 also was performed to evaluate their association with treatment response. Additionally, 8 baseline clinical parameters and a combination of baseline OCT, delta-texture features, and the clinical parameters were evaluated in a cross -validated approach in terms of association with therapeutic response.Main Outcome Measures: The cross-validated area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were calculated to validate the classifier performance.Results: The cross-validated AUC by the quadratic discriminant analysis classifier was 0.75 & PLUSMN; 0.09 using texture-based baseline OCT features. The delta-texture features within different OCT compartments between baseline and month 3 yielded an AUC of 0.78 & PLUSMN; 0.08. The baseline clinical parameters sub -retinal pigment epithelium volume and intraretinal fluid volume yielded an AUC of 0.62 & PLUSMN; 0.07. When all the baseline, delta, and clinical features were combined, a statistically significant improvement in the classifier performance (AUC, 0.81 & PLUSMN; 0.07) was obtained.Conclusions: Radiomic-based quantitative assessment of OCT images was shown to distinguish between super responders and non -super responders to anti-VEGF therapy in nAMD. The baseline fluid and SHRM delta -texture features were found to be most discriminating across groups. Ophthalmology Science 2022;2:100171 & COPY; 2022 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).