Radiomics of high-resolution computed tomography for the differentiation between cholesteatoma and middle ear inflammation: effects of post-reconstruction methods in a dual-center study

Abstract

• Unenhanced high-resolution CT coupled with radiomics analysis may be useful for the differentiation between cholesteatoma and middle ear inflammation. • Pooling of data extracted from inhomogeneous CT datasets does not appear meaningful without further post-processing. • When using multi-centric CT data obtained with differences in acquisition parameters, post-reconstruction harmonization and data resampling clearly improve radiomics-based soft-tissue differentiation.