Improving Kidney Volume Measurement Reproducibility in ADPKD by Averaging Measurements on Multiple Sequences

Organ volume measurements on MRI are typically performed on a single pulse sequence because of the tedious process of manual contouring. Here we use deep learning to automate kidney segmentations so that kidney volume can be measured on five abdominal MRI sequences. In 17 subjects scanned twice within 3 weeks (when no change in kidney volume was expected), the power of averaging 5 measurements improved reproducibility, achieving 2.5% absolute percent difference compared to 5.9% with manual contouring (p<0.05). Absolute percent error was reduced further to 2.1%, p<0.05 compared to manual segmentations, by excluding outlier measurements.