Why the study?
Does the AtheroCloud automated software system provide reproducible carotid lumen diameter ultrasound measurements compared to manual tracing?
Does the AtheroCloud automated software system provide reproducible carotid lumen diameter ultrasound measurements compared to manual tracing?
The AtheroCloud automated software system provides highly reproducible measurements of carotid lumen diameter, comparable to manual tracing.
Supports automated carotid measurements in research; leaves open prospective outcome validation before clinical use.
BACKGROUND: Common carotid artery lumen diameter (LD) ultrasound measurement systems are either manual or semi-automated and lack reproducibility and variability studies. This pilot study presents an automated and cloud-based LD measurements software system (AtheroCloud) and evaluates its: (i) intra/inter-operator reproducibility and (ii) intra/inter-observer variability. METHODS: 100 patients (83M, mean age: 68±11years), IRB approved, consisted of L/R CCA artery (200 ultrasound images), acquired using a 7.5-MHz linear transducer. The intra/inter-operator reproducibility was verified using three operator's readings. Near-wall and far carotid wall borders were manually traced by two observers for intra/inter-observer variability analysis. RESULTS: The mean coefficient of correlation (CC) for intra- and inter-operator reproducibility between all the three automated reading pairs were: 0.99 (P<0.0001) and 0.97 (P<0.0001), respectively. The mean CC for intra- and inter-observer variability between both the manual reading pairs were 0.98 (P<0.0001) and 0.98 (P<0.0001), respectively. The Figure-of-Merit between the mean of the three automated readings against the four manuals were 98.32%, 99.50%, 98.94% and 98.49%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The AtheroCloud LD measurement system showed high intra/inter-operator reproducibility hence can be adapted for vascular screening mode or pharmaceutical clinical trial mode.
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Saba et al. (2018) studied this question.
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