Radiomics and Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Rectal Cancer: From Engineering to Clinical Practice

While cross-sectional imaging has seen continuous progress and plays an undiscussedpivotal role in the diagnostic management and treatment planning of patients with rectal cancer, alargely unmet need remains for improved staging accuracy, assessment of treatment response andprediction of individual patient outcome. Moreover, the increasing availability of target therapies hascalled for developing reliable diagnostic tools for identifying potential responders and optimizingoverall treatment strategy on a personalized basis. Radiomics has emerged as a promising, still fullyevolving research topic, which could harness the power of modern computer technology to generatequantitative information from imaging datasets based on advanced data-driven biomathematicalmodels, potentially providing an added value to conventional imaging for improved patient manage-ment. The present study aimed to illustrate the contribution that current radiomics methods appliedto magnetic resonance imaging can offer to managing patients with rectal cancer.