Citation
Kumamaru, Kanako and George, Elizabeth and Aghayev, Ayaz and Saboo, Sachin S. and Khandelwal, Ashish and Rodríguez López, Sara and Cai, Tianrun and Jiménez Carretero, Daniel and San José Estépar, Raúl and Ledesma Carbayo, María Jesús and González, Germán and Rybicki, Frank J.
(2015).
Implementation and performance of automated software to compute the RV/LV diameter ratio from CT pulmonary angiography images.
"Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography", v. 40
(n. 3);
pp. 387-392.
ISSN 0363-8715.
https://doi.org/10.1097/RCT.0000000000000375.
Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study was to prospectively test the performance and potential for clinical integration of software that automatically calculates the right-to-left ventricular (RV/LV) diameter ratio from computed tomography pulmonary angiography images.
Methods: Using 115 computed tomography pulmonary angiography images that were positive for acute pulmonary embolism, we prospectively evaluated RV/LV ratio measurements that were obtained as follows: (1) completely manual measurement (reference standard), (2) completely automated measurement using the software, and (3 and 4) using a customized software interface that allowed 2 independent radiologists to manually adjust the automatically positioned calipers.
Results: Automated measurements underestimated (P < 0.001) the reference standard (1.09 [0.25] vs1.03 [0.35]). With manual correction of the automatically positioned calipers, the mean ratio became closer to the reference standard (1.06 [0.29] by read 1 and 1.07 [0.30] by read 2), and the correlation improved (r = 0.675 to 0.872 and 0.887). The mean time required for manual adjustment (37 [20] seconds) was significantly less than the time required to perform measurements entirely manually (100 [23] seconds).
Conclusions: Automated CT RV/LV diameter ratio software shows promise for integration into the clinical workflow for patients with acute pulmonary embolism.
