Image analysis
pulmonary embolism, Aycan
PULMONARY EMBOLISM
Image analysis was performed in a dedicated PACS-viewer solution (Aycan workstation PRO, Version 3.14.006, Aycan Medical Systems LLC). ROIs were placed in both the pulmonary trunk and the descending aorta at the transverse level of the pulmonary trunk by a radiology resident with 5 years of experience in CT imaging.The study image quality analysis was performed analogous to the preliminary study on the incidence of the TIC phenomenon by Sudarski et al enrolled at the same institution [The presence of adequate contrast was evaluated at the level of the pulmonary trunk, lobar level, segmental level, and subsegmental level individually by the reader. Furthermore, the presence of relevant breathing artifacts and pulmonary embolism was evaluated. The presence of breathing artifacts was evaluated, and it was recorded whether these affected the diagnostic accuracy to a relevant degree. The evaluation of the artifacts was performed in a two-step approach: First, the evaluation was performed with respect to the contrast at all lung artery levels. This was followed by a second assessment of the presence of respiratory artifacts. Here, respiratory artifacts were defined as having a relevant detrimental effect on lung parenchyma evaluation. To exclude the influence of too strong respiratory artifacts on the contrast evaluation, a separate evaluation of patients with breathing artifacts was performed.