Variation in aorta attenuation in contrast-enhanced CT and its implications for calcification thresholds

Sven A Holcombe, Steven R Horbal, Brian E Ross, Edward Brown, Brian A Derstine and Stewart C Wang

PLOS ONE, 2022, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: Background: CT contrast media improves vessel visualization but can also confound calcification measurements. We evaluated variance in aorta attenuation from varied contrast-enhancement scans, and quantified expected plaque detection errors when thresholding for calcification. Methods: We measured aorta attenuation (AoHU) in central vessel regions from 10K abdominal CT scans and report AoHU relationships to contrast phase (non-contrast, arterial, venous, delayed), demographic variables (age, sex, weight), body location, and scan slice thickness. We also report expected plaque segmentation false-negative errors (plaque pixels misidentified as non-plaque pixels) and false-positive errors (vessel pixels falsely identified as plaque), comparing a uniform thresholding approach and a dynamic approach based on local mean/SD aorta attenuation. Results: Females had higher AoHU than males in contrast-enhanced scans by 65/22/20 HU for arterial/venous/delayed phases (p 0.05). Weight was negatively correlated with AoHU by 2.3HU/10kg but other predictors explained only small portions of intra-cohort variance (R2

Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0277111

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277111

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