Effectiveness of the automatic coronary analysis cardiac software in assisting inexperienced readers: comparison between two commercial vendors

Purpose or Learning Objective The aim of the study was to compare the reliability of two advanced cardiac software package commercially available for the interpretation of CT coronary angiography (CCTA): Software 1 (Universal Viewer-GE 6.0) and Software 2 (IntelliSpace Portal-Philips v6.0.2.33500). We evaluated which was the fastest and the most effective in the automated detection of coronary arteries as support to assist inexperienced CCTA readers. Methods or Background CCTA of consecutive patients were analyzed with both software including automatic detection of coronary vessels, curved Multiplanar Reformation (MPR) and Volume Rendering Techniques (VRT) reconstructions. We used a standardized approach to coronary vessel identification and segmentation according to Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SSCT) guidelines. Time of processing and effectiveness in automated detection of coronary arteries were evaluated in both software: two inexperienced CCTA readers, supervised by a ten-years experienced radiology, measured the time in which the vessels were automatically selected and indicated how many segments for each vessel were correctly automatically detected. We further evaluated if the three main coronary vessels (RCA, CX and LAD) were correctly nominated. Chi-square and Wilcoxon test was used for statistical evaluations. Results or Findings Eighty-patients were finally enrolled (50 male, 63±11y). Software 1 showed a significantly better performance in segments detection (p=0.0014) and in automatic vessels identification (p<0.001), and resulted significantly faster than Software 2 (18.3 s vs 21.9 s; p<0.001). Conclusion The advanced cardiac Software 1 better assists novice CCTA readers in automatic identification of the three main vessels and coronaries segments with a consistent time saving.