PURPOSE: Identification of new enhancing lesions is a major endpoint of longitudinal brain magnetic resonance (MR) studies of multiple sclerosis (MS). To date, this is a visual, time-consuming procedure. We present here a supervised automated procedure (SAP) aimed at reducing the time needed to identify new MS enhancing lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The SAP uses an algorithm including Cartesian coordinates of the lesions to be compared, their area and a constant (k). The procedure was validated for enhancing lesions on T1-weighted spin-echo images after intravenous administration of 0.1 mmol/kg of paramagnetic contrast agent, randomly selected from a dataset of a longitudinal MR study on ten relapsing-remitting MS patients followed for 2-5 years. During the validation session, two readers decided by consensus whether two lesions, present on the same slice of two examinations performed on subsequent dates, were the same or not. In this way, k was calibrated to obtain the same result from both visual inspection and automatic algorithm output. RESULTS: After evaluating of 25+/-5 (mean+/-standard deviation) lesions in each of ten different sessions with correction of k value, the k value became a stable value (0.45+/-0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Once the suitable value of k was found, SAP was able to identify new enhancing lesions, avoiding visual inspection, which is usually a lengthy procedure.
PURPOSE: Identification of new enhancing lesions is a major endpoint of longitudinal brain magnetic resonance (MR) studies of multiple sclerosis (MS). To date, this is a visual, time-consuming procedure. We present here a supervised automated procedure (SAP) aimed at reducing the time needed to identify new MS enhancing lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The SAP uses an algorithm including Cartesian coordinates of the lesions to be compared, their area and a constant (k). The procedure was validated for enhancing lesions on T1-weighted spin-echo images after intravenous administration of 0.1 mmol/kg of paramagnetic contrast agent, randomly selected from a dataset of a longitudinal MR study on ten relapsing-remitting MS patients followed for 2-5 years. During the validation session, two readers decided by consensus whether two lesions, present on the same slice of two examinations performed on subsequent dates, were the same or not. In this way, k was calibrated to obtain the same result from both visual inspection and automatic algorithm output. RESULTS: After evaluating of 25+/-5 (mean+/-standard deviation) lesions in each of ten different sessions with correction of k value, the k value became a stable value (0.45+/-0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Once the suitable value of k was found, SAP was able to identify new enhancing lesions, avoiding visual inspection, which is usually a lengthy procedure.
Authors: G L Mancardi; F Sardanelli; R C Parodi; E Melani; E Capello; M Inglese; A Ferrari; M P Sormani; C Ottonello; F Levrero; A Uccelli; P Bruzzi Journal: Neurology Date: 1998-04 Impact factor: 9.910
Authors: D H Miller; P S Albert; F Barkhof; G Francis; J A Frank; S Hodgkinson; F D Lublin; D W Paty; S C Reingold; J Simon Journal: Ann Neurol Date: 1996-01 Impact factor: 10.422
Authors: H L Weiner; C R Guttmann; S J Khoury; E J Orav; M J Hohol; R Kikinis; F A Jolesz Journal: J Neuroimmunol Date: 2000-05-01 Impact factor: 3.478
Authors: J Grimaud; M Lai; J Thorpe; P Adeleine; L Wang; G J Barker; D L Plummer; P S Tofts; W I McDonald; D H Miller Journal: Magn Reson Imaging Date: 1996 Impact factor: 2.546