Downward myocardial creep during stress PET imaging is inversely associated with mortality.

PURPOSE: The myocardial creep is a phenomenon in which the heart moves from its original position during stress-dynamic PET myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) that can confound myocardial blood flow measurements. Therefore, myocardial motion correction is important to obtain reliable myocardial flow quantification. However, the clinical importance of the magnitude of myocardial creep has not been explored. We aimed to explore the prognostic value of myocardial creep quantified by an automated motion correction algorithm beyond traditional PET-MPI imaging variables. METHODS: Consecutive patients undergoing regadenoson rest-stress [82Rb]Cl PET-MPI were included. A newly developed 3D motion correction algorithm quantified myocardial creep, the maximum motion at stress during the first pass (60 s), in each direction. All-cause mortality (ACM) served as the primary endpoint. RESULTS: A total of 4,276 patients (median age 71 years; 60% male) were analyzed, and 1,007 ACM events were documented during a 5-year median follow-up. Processing time for automatic motion correction was < 12 s per patient. Myocardial creep in the superior to inferior (downward) direction was greater than the other directions (median, 4.2 mm vs. 1.3-1.7 mm). Annual mortality rates adjusted for age and sex were reduced with a larger downward creep, with a 4.2-fold ratio between the first (0 mm motion) and 10th decile (11 mm motion) (mortality, 7.9% vs. 1.9%/year). Downward creep was associated with lower ACM after full adjustment for clinical and imaging parameters (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.93; 95%CI, 0.91-0.95; p < 0.001). Adding downward creep to the standard PET-MPI imaging model significantly improved ACM prediction (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve, 0.790 vs. 0.775; p < 0.001), but other directions did not (p > 0.5). CONCLUSIONS: Downward myocardial creep during regadenoson stress carries additional information for the prediction of ACM beyond conventional flow and perfusion PET-MPI. This novel imaging biomarker is quantified automatically and rapidly from stress dynamic PET-MPI.

"Same-Patient Processing" for multiple cardiac SPECT studies. 1. Improving LV segmentation accuracy.

OBJECTIVES: This paper describes a novel approach (same-patient processing, or SPP) aimed at improving left ventricular segmentation accuracy in patients with multiple SPECT studies, and evaluates its performance compared to conventional processing in a large population of 962 patients undergoing rest and stress electrocardiography-gated SPECT MPI, for a total of 5,772 image datasets (6 per patient). METHODS: Each dataset was independently processed using a standard algorithm, and a shape quality control score (SQC) was produced for every segmentation. Datasets with a SQC score higher than a specific threshold, suggesting algorithmic failure, were automatically reprocessed with the SPP-modified algorithm, which incorporates knowledge of the segmentation mask location in the other datasets belonging to the same patient. Experienced operators blinded as to whether datasets had been processed based on the standard or SPP approach assessed segmentation success/failure for each dataset. RESULTS: The SPP approach reduced segmentation failures from 219/5772 (3.8%) to 42/5772 (0.7%) overall, with particular improvements in attenuation corrected (AC) datasets with high extra-cardiac activity (from 100/962 (10.4%) to 12/962 (1.4%) for rest AC, and from 41/962 (4.3%) to 9/962 (0.9%) for stress AC). The number of patients who had at least one of their 6 datasets affected by segmentation failure decreased from 141/962 (14.7%) to 14/962 (1.7%) using the SPP approach. CONCLUSION: Whenever multiple image datasets for the same patient exist and need to be processed, it is possible to deal with the images as a group rather than individually. The same-patient processing approach can be implemented automatically, and may substantially reduce the need for manual reprocessing due to cardiac segmentation failure.