Computer-aided detection for the automated evaluation of pulmonary embolism

BACKGROUND: There are few quantitative studies that directly evaluate methods of determining pulmonary embolism (PE). New computer-aided detection (CAD) methods for measuring PE may help in defining the relationship of PE to right heart failure (RHF). OBJECTIVES: We used CAD to investigate the severity of PE and explored whether the severity of PE was associated with RHF. METHODS: A fully automatic calculation conducted by CAD was made of the embolism area/lumen area, which was used to evaluate the severity of the PE. The vascular obstruction index (VOI) was also used to evaluate PE, using the Mastora and Qanadli scores. Paired t tests were used to compare the severity of PE evaluated by Mastora or Qanadli score, to the severity determined by CAD. Correlation between the severity of the PE and RHF was also evaluated by Spearman's rank correlation analysis. RESULTS: There was no significant difference between the PE evaluated by Mastora compared with the measurement by CAD (P = 0.720), and also no difference between evaluation by Qanadli and automatic measurement by CAD (P = 0.617). The severity of PE evaluated by Mastora, Qanadli, and CAD had significant positive correlation with RHF (R = 0.75 P = 0.01, R = 0.69 P = 0.02, R = 0.80 P = 0.00). CONCLUSION: We found strong correlation between RHF and the severity of PE evaluated by CAD, and the method was found to be simple and reliable.