Evidence Hub

Extraction of the subpleural lung region from computed tomography images to detect interstitial lung disease

Iwasawa T, Iwao Y, Takemura T, Okudela K, Gotoh T, Baba T, Ogura T, Oba MS

Japanese journal of radiology, 2017

40 participants

Abstract

PURPOSE: To quantify lesions in the subpleural lung region (SubPL) on computed tomography (CT) images and to evaluate whether they are useful for detecting interstitial lung disease (ILD).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The subjects were 40 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) diagnosed by multidisciplinary methods and 35 age-matched patients without ILDs. The lungs and SubPL were extracted from CT images using a Gaussian histogram normalized correlation system and evaluated for the mean CT attenuation value (CTmean) and the percentage of high attenuation area (%HAA), exceeding -700 Hounsfield units. The H pattern was defined as a honeycomb appearance and/or fibrosis with traction bronchiectasis, and the H-pattern volume ratios for the whole lung and the 2-mm-wide SubPL were measured. The utility of the SubPL for detecting ILD was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.

RESULTS: The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) of CTmean and %HAA for the SubPL were greater than those for the whole lung. The AUCs for the whole lung and the SubPL were 0.990 and 0.994, respectively, for H-pattern volume; 0.875 and 0.994, respectively, for CTmean; and 0.965 and 0.991, respectively, for %HAA.

CONCLUSION: The SubPL extraction method may be helpful for distinguishing patients with ILD from those without ILD.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 40 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free