Fractal texture analysis of perfusion lung scans

The purpose of this study is to investigate if fractal texture analysis can assist in the diagnostic interpretation of perfusion lung scans. Forty-five perfusion scans were acquired from patients with clinical suspicion of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) who underwent pulmonary angiography for final diagnosis. Fractal texture analysis was performed on 270 regions of interest (ROIs) extracted from the posterior view of the lung scans. Specifically, there were 94 normally perfused ROIs and 176 abnormal ROIs representing various lung diseases including PE and obstructive pulmonary disease (OPD). The average fractal dimension (FD) of normal ROIs was statistically significantly higher than that of abnormal ROIs. Furthermore, the FDs of abnormal ROIs with PE were significantly lower than the FDs of ROIs with OPD present.