Deep learning-based measurement of split glomerular filtration rate with Tc-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid renal scan.

PURPOSE

To develop a deep learning (DL) model for generating automated regions of interest (ROIs) on Tc-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) renal scans for glomerular filtration rate (GFR) measurement.

METHODS

Manually-drawn ROIs retrieved from a Picture Archiving and Communications System were used as ground-truth (GT) labels. A two-dimensional U-Net convolutional neural network architecture with multichannel input was trained to generate DL ROIs. The agreement between GFR values from GT and DL ROIs was evaluated using Lin's concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) and slope coefficients for linear regression analyses. Bias and 95% limits of agreement (LOA) were assessed using Bland-Altman plots.

RESULTS

A total of 24,364 scans (12,822 patients) were included. Excellent concordance between GT and DL GFR was found for left (CCC 0.982, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.981-0.982; slope 1.004, 95% CI 1.003-1.004), right (CCC 0.969, 95% CI 0.968-0.969; slope 0.954, 95% CI 0.953-0.955) and both kidneys (CCC 0.978, 95% CI 0.978-0.979; slope 0.979, 95% CI 0.978-0.979). Bland-Altman analysis revealed minimal bias between GT and DL GFR, with mean differences of - 0.2 (95% LOA - 4.4-4.0), 1.4 (95% LOA - 3.5-6.3) and 1.2 (95% LOA - 6.5-8.8) mL/min/1.73 m² for left, right and both kidneys, respectively. Notably, 19,960 scans (81.9%) showed an absolute difference in GFR of less than 5 mL/min/1.73 m².

CONCLUSION

Our DL model exhibited excellent performance in the generation of ROIs on Tc-DTPA renal scans. This automated approach could potentially reduce manual effort and enhance the precision of GFR measurement in clinical practice.