Habitat imaging before transarterial chemoembolization in hepatocellular carcinoma: Ready for clinical decision-making?

Figure 1 Conceptual workflow of habitat imaging before transarterial chemoembolization. Habitat imaging preserves spatial heterogeneity rather than averaging it away. A practical pipeline moves from multiphasic magnetic resonance imaging acquisition to lesion segmentation, habitat partitioning, integration with radiomic and clinical information, and finally pretreatment therapeutic allocation. The intended clinical value is to improve selection for transarterial chemoembolization, avoid futile procedures, and support multidisciplinary decision-making. HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging; TACE: Transarterial chemoembolization. The figure was prepared with the help of ChatGPT and subsequently reviewed and approved by the authors. ChatGPT was used only to assist visual drafting and graphic arrangement, including the organization of boxes, arrows, icons, and overall layout. The scientific concepts, wording, figure logic, and final content were entirely defined, reviewed, and approved by the authors.

Figure 2 Translational roadmap from promising prediction to clinical adoption. The current literature supports promising retrospective predictive performance, but the field will only mature through prospective multicenter validation, stronger biological correlation, and workflow-ready decision support. Clinical adoption should be judged by better treatment allocation and not only by higher discrimination metrics. MVI: Multivariate index; AUC: Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The figure was prepared with the help of ChatGPT and subsequently reviewed and approved by the authors. ChatGPT was used only to assist visual drafting and graphic arrangement, including the organization of boxes, arrows, icons, and overall layout. The scientific concepts, wording, figure logic, and final content were entirely defined, reviewed, and approved by the authors.