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Quantitative CT Measurements of Interstitial Lung Disease: Same-Day Variability Between Two Vendors-A Prospective
Yura Ahn1, Sang Min Lee1, Youngjae Kim2,3
1Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 88 Olympic-ro 43-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul 05505, Republic of Korea.
Quantitative CT (QCT) measurements for interstitial lung disease (ILD) fibrosis show minimal variability between vendors when using primary high-frequency kernels. This finding supports consistent longitudinal monitoring of ILD progression across different CT scanner systems.
Area of Science:
- Radiology
- Pulmonology
- Medical Imaging
Background:
- Longitudinal monitoring of interstitial lung disease (ILD) progression using quantitative CT (QCT) requires understanding inter-vendor measurement variability.
- Assessing fibrosis extent in ILD patients necessitates reliable and consistent QCT metrics across different imaging platforms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the same-day variability of QCT measurements for fibrosis extent in ILD patients between GE and Siemens CT scanners.
- To determine the agreement of QCT-derived fibrosis scores across different vendors and reconstruction kernels.
Main Methods:
- Prospective study of 48 ILD patients undergoing serial nonenhanced chest CT on GE and Siemens scanners on the same day.
- QCT analysis using deep-learning software to calculate fibrosis score (reticular opacity and honeycombing volume percentages).
- Inter-vendor variability assessed via Bland-Altman analysis; agreement evaluated using concordance correlation coefficient (CCC).
Main Results:
- Fibrosis scores showed substantial to almost perfect agreement across all inter-vendor kernel combinations (CCC: 0.953-0.998).
- The primary high-frequency kernels (LUNG and B60f) demonstrated almost perfect agreement (CCC: 0.989) with a mean raw difference of -0.80%.
- Narrowest limits of agreement were observed for the BONE-B50f kernel pair, while the widest were for LUNG-B30f.
Conclusions:
- QCT-derived fibrosis scores exhibit low variability between vendors when using their respective primary high-frequency kernels for lung evaluation.
- These findings suggest that QCT measurements are suitable for longitudinal ILD assessment across different vendors, provided measurement variability is considered.
- The study supports the clinical utility of QCT for consistent ILD monitoring, enhancing disease management strategies.
