Abstract
BackgroundAs imaging centers produce higher resolution research scans, the number of man-hours required to process regional data has become a major concern. Comparison of automated vs. manual methodology has not been reported for functional imaging. We explored validation of using automation to delineate regions of interest on positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The purpose of this study was to ascertain improvements in image processing time and reproducibility of a semi-automated brain region extraction (SABRE) method over manual delineation of regions of interest (ROIs).MethodsWe compared 2 sets of partial volume corrected serotonin 1a receptor binding potentials (BPs) resulting from manual vs. semi-automated methods. BPs were obtained from subjects meeting consensus criteria for frontotemporal degeneration and from age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Two trained raters provided each set of data to conduct comparisons of inter-rater mean image processing time, rank order of BPs for 9 PET scans, intra- and inter-rater intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), repeatability coefficients (RC), percentages of the average parameter value (RM%), and effect sizes of either method.ResultsSABRE saved approximately 3 hours of processing time per PET subject over manual delineation (p < .001). Quality of the SABRE BP results was preserved relative to the rank order of subjects by manual methods. Intra- and inter-rater ICC were high (>0.8) for both methods. RC and RM% were lower for the manual method across all ROIs, indicating less intra-rater variance across PET subjects' BPs.ConclusionSABRE demonstrated significant time savings and no significant difference in reproducibility over manual methods, justifying the use of SABRE in serotonin 1a receptor radioligand PET imaging analysis. This implies that semi-automated ROI delineation is a valid methodology for future PET imaging analysis.
Highlights
As imaging centers produce higher resolution research scans, the number of man-hours required to process regional data has become a major concern
We evaluated the basic quality of positron emission tomography (PET) results by calculating the over all rank order of binding potentials (BPs) among 9 subjects in each regions of interest (ROIs) with the Spearman rank correlation test
Our present results indicate that the semi-automated brain region extraction (SABRE) method saves time for functional radioligand PET analysis without altering the basic quality of the results as compared to the gold standard, manual ROI analysis
Summary
As imaging centers produce higher resolution research scans, the number of man-hours required to process regional data has become a major concern. In order to resolve these problems, some researchers have suggested other methods of analysis as represented by an automated program to label brain regions [4], automated evaluation of the whole brain [5], and automated voxel-based morphometry [6]. These alternatives are limited by ROIs available [4,5] and the potential inaccuracy introduced by spatial normalization of the brain [7]. SABRE has proven reliable in assessing regional tissue volume, and it provides time savings over purely manual methods
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