Development of Pericardial Fat Count Images Using a Combination of Three Different Deep-Learning Models: Image Translation Model From Chest Radiograph Image to Projection Image of Three-Dimensional Computed Tomography.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Pericardial fat (PF)-the thoracic visceral fat surrounding the heart-promotes the development of coronary artery disease by inducing inflammation of the coronary arteries. To evaluate PF, we generated pericardial fat count images (PFCIs) from chest radiographs (CXRs) using a dedicated deep-learning model. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed data of 269 consecutive patients who underwent coronary computed tomography (CT). We excluded patients with metal implants, pleural effusion, history of thoracic surgery, or malignancy. Thus, the data of 191 patients were used. We generated PFCIs from the projection of three-dimensional CT images, wherein fat accumulation was represented by a high pixel value. Three different deep-learning models, including CycleGAN were combined in the proposed method to generate PFCIs from CXRs. A single CycleGAN-based model was used to generate PFCIs from CXRs for comparison with the proposed method. To evaluate the image quality of the generated PFCIs, structural similarity index measure (SSIM), mean squared error (MSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) of (i) the PFCI generated using the proposed method and (ii) the PFCI generated using the single model were compared. RESULTS: The mean SSIM, MSE, and MAE were 8.56 × 10-1, 1.28 × 10-2, and 3.57 × 10-2, respectively, for the proposed model, and 7.62 × 10-1, 1.98 × 10-2, and 5.04 × 10-2, respectively, for the single CycleGAN-based model. CONCLUSION: PFCIs generated from CXRs with the proposed model showed better performance than those generated with the single model. The evaluation of PF without CT may be possible using the proposed method.