AI-Derived Left Ventricular Mass From Noncontrast Cardiac CT: Correlation With Contrast CT Angiography and CMR.

BACKGROUND

Noncontrast computed tomography (CT) scans are not used for evaluating left ventricle myocardial mass (LV mass), which is typically evaluated with contrast CT or cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR).

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the study was to assess the feasibility of LV mass estimation from standard, ECG-gated, noncontrast CT using an artificial intelligence (AI) approach and compare it with coronary CT angiography (CTA) and CMR.

METHODS

We enrolled consecutive patients who underwent coronary CTA, which included noncontrast CT calcium scanning and contrast CTA, and CMR. The median interval between coronary CTA and CMR was 22 days (interquartile range: 3-76). We utilized a no new UNet AI model that automatically segmented noncontrast CT structures. AI measurement of LV mass was compared to contrast CTA and CMR.

RESULTS

A total of 316 patients (age: 57.1 ± 16.7 years, 56% male) were included. The AI segmentation took on average 22 seconds per case. An excellent correlation was observed between AI and contrast CTA LV mass measures (r = 0.84,  < 0.001), with no significant differences (136.5 ± 55.3 g vs 139.6 ± 56.9 g,  = 0.133). Bland-Altman analysis showed minimal bias of 2.9. When compared to CMR, measured LV mass was higher with AI (136.5 ± 55.3 g vs 127.1 ± 53.1 g,  < 0.001). There was an excellent correlation between AI and CMR (r = 0.85,  < 0.001), with a small bias (-9.4). There were no statistical differences between the correlations of LV mass between contrast CTA and CMR or AI and CMR.

CONCLUSIONS

The AI-based automated estimation of LV mass from noncontrast CT demonstrated excellent correlations and minimal biases when compared to contrast CTA and CMR.