Blooming Artifact Reduction in Coronary Artery Calcification by A New De-blooming Algorithm: Initial Study

• Published in: Scientific reports 2018-05, Vol.8 (1), p.6945-8, Article 6945
• Main Authors: Li, Ping, Xu, Lei, Yang, Lin, Wang, Rui, Hsieh, Jiang, Sun, Zhonghua, Fan, Zhanming, Leipsic, Jonathon A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/1647/767/1657; 631/57; 639/766/747; 692/4019/592/2193; Algorithms; Angiography; Bias; Calcification; Calcification (ectopic); Computed tomography; Coronary artery; Heart diseases; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Plaques; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Stenosis
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-25352-5

The aim of this study was to investigate the use of de-blooming algorithm in coronary CT angiography (CCTA) for optimal evaluation of calcified plaques. Calcified plaques were simulated on a coronary vessel phantom and a cardiac motion phantom. Two convolution kernels, standard (STND) and high-definition standard (HD STND), were used for imaging reconstruction. A dedicated de-blooming algorithm was used for imaging processing. We found a smaller bias towards measurement of stenosis using the de-blooming algorithm (STND: bias 24.6% vs 15.0%, range 10.2% to 39.0% vs 4.0% to 25.9%; HD STND: bias 17.9% vs 11.0%, range 8.9% to 30.6% vs 0.5% to 21.5%). With use of de-blooming algorithm, specificity for diagnosing significant stenosis increased from 45.8% to 75.0% (STND), from 62.5% to 83.3% (HD STND); while positive predictive value (PPV) increased from 69.8% to 83.3% (STND), from 76.9% to 88.2% (HD STND). In the patient group, reduction in calcification volume was 48.1 ± 10.3%, reduction in coronary diameter stenosis over calcified plaque was 52.4 ± 24.2%. Our results suggest that the novel de-blooming algorithm could effectively decrease the blooming artifacts caused by coronary calcified plaques, and consequently improve diagnostic accuracy of CCTA in assessing coronary stenosis.