CT volume analysis in living donor liver transplantation: accuracy of three different approaches

The aim of this retrospective study is to compare and evaluate accuracy of three different approaches of liver volume quantification in living donor transplantations.

This is a single-center, retrospective study of 60 donors. The total and right lobe liver volumes were analyzed in the portal-venous phase by two independent radiologists who estimated the volumes using manual, semi-automated and automated segmentation methods. The measured right lobe liver volume was compared to the real weight of the graft after back-table examinations.

The mean estimated overall liver volume was 1164.4 ± 137.0 mL for manual, 1277.4 ± 190.4 mL for semi-automated and 1240.1 ± 108.5 mL for automated segmentation. The mean estimated right lobe volume was 762.0 ± 122.4 mL for manual, 792.9 ± 139.9 mL for semi-automated and 765.4 ± 132.7 mL for automated segmentation. The mean graft weight was 711.2 ± 142.9 g. The manual method better correlated with the graft weight (r = 0.730) in comparison with the semi-automated (r = 0.685) and the automated (r = 0.699) methods (p < 0.001). The mean error ratio in volume estimation by each application was 12.7 ± 16.6% for manual, 17.1 ± 17.3% for semi-automated, 14.7 ± 16.8% for automated methods. There was a statistically significant difference between the mean error ratio of the manual and the semi-automated segmentations (p = 0.017), and no statistically significant difference between the manual and the automated applications (p = 0.199).

Volume analysis application better correlates with graft weight, but there is no obvious difference between correlation coefficients of all three methods. All three modalities had an error ratio, of which the semi-automated method showed the highest value.

Volume analysis application was more accurate, but there is no drastic difference between correlation coefficients of all three methods.