Automated vs. manual assessment of left ventricular function in cardiac multidetector row computed tomography: comparison with magnetic resonance imaging

We compared semiautomatic contour detection and manual contour tracing in cardiac multidetector row computed tomography (MDCT) with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for calculation of left-ventricular (LV) volumes. The study included 30 patients who underwent contrast-enhanced cardiac MDCT and cardiac cine-MRI. Were calculated 8 mm short-axis slices from MDCT data using three-dimensional multiphase image reconstruction. LV volumes including peak ejection rate and peak filling rate were calculated from manually and semiautomatically determined contours. Results were compared to those from cine-MRI with manually drawn contours as the standard of reference. We found good agreement for the LV volumes, with an ejection fraction of 47.1±9.4% for manually drawn contours, 47.9±9.9% for semiautomatically detected contours on MDCT, and 48.0±10.2% for MRI. Except for peak-filling rate analysis of variance revealed no difference between any of these techniques. Bland-Altman plots and Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient showed best agreement between MRI and manual contour tracing in MDCT. Calculation of LV volumes using either semiautomatic or manual contour tracing in cardiac MDCT is therefore feasible when compared to MRI. Automated contour detection needs to be improved to equal manual contour tracing.