Quantification of myocardial perfusion SPECT using freeware package (cardioBull)

Area of Science:

• Nuclear Medicine
• Cardiology
• Medical Imaging Analysis

Background:

• Coronary artery disease (CAD) diagnosis relies on accurate myocardial perfusion imaging.
• Quantitative single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) analysis is crucial for assessing myocardial perfusion.
• Existing commercial software for SPECT analysis can be costly.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the diagnostic performance of a newly developed freeware package, cardioBull, for quantifying myocardial perfusion.
• To compare the diagnostic accuracy of cardioBull with a commercially available software, Quantitative Perfusion SPECT (QPS).
• To assess the utility of cardioBull in detecting coronary artery disease (CAD).

Main Methods:

• 36 patients with CAD and 35 controls underwent stress-rest (99m)Tc-sestamibi myocardial perfusion SPECT.
• Coronary angiography confirmed ≥75% stenosis in the CAD group.
• Segmental perfusion defect scores and Summed Stress Scores (SSS) were automatically calculated by both cardioBull and QPS.
• Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to determine CAD detection performance, calculating Areas Under the ROC Curve (AUC).

Main Results:

• Mean SSS values were similar between cardioBull and QPS (6.0 ± 7.1 vs. 5.6 ± 7.0).
• The AUC for cardioBull (0.91 ± 0.04) was comparable to QPS (0.87 ± 0.04), indicating equivalent diagnostic performance.
• CardioBull demonstrated high overall sensitivity (89%), specificity (74%), and accuracy (82%) for CAD detection.
• Regional analysis showed the highest AUC in the left anterior descending (LAD) artery territory for both software packages.

Conclusions:

• The developed cardioBull software exhibits high diagnostic performance for detecting CAD.
• CardioBull provides comparable diagnostic accuracy to the commercial QPS software.
• CardioBull represents a promising freeware solution for myocardial perfusion SPECT analysis in CAD detection.