The Efficacy of CT Temporal Subtraction Images for Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva

To evaluate the usefulness of CT temporal subtraction (TS) images for detecting emerging or growing ectopic bone lesions in fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP).

Four patients with FOP were retrospectively included in this study. TS images were produced by subtracting previously registered CT images from the current images. Two residents and two board-certified radiologists independently interpreted a pair of current and previous CT images for each subject with or without TS images. Changes in the visibility of the lesion, the usefulness of TS images for lesions with TS images, and the interpreter's confidence level in their interpretation of each scan were assessed on a semiquantitative 5-point scale (0-4). The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the evaluated scores between datasets with and without TS images.

The number of growing lesions tended to be larger than that of the emerging lesions in all cases. A higher sensitivity was found in residents and radiologists using TS compared to those not using TS. For all residents and radiologists, the dataset with TS tended to have more false-positive scans than the dataset without TS. All the interpreters recognized TS as useful, and confidence levels when using TS tended to be lower or the same as when not using TS for two residents and one radiologist.

TS improved the sensitivity of all interpreters in detecting emerging or growing ectopic bone lesions in patients with FOP. TS could be applied further, including the areas of systematic bone disease.