Automatic vs manual coronary CT angiography reconstruction for whole-heart coverage CT scanner: A comparison study in general patient population

BACKGROUND: Due to the limited temporal resolution and cardiac motion, coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) exam is one of the most challenging CT protocols which may require operating radiologist to apply additional phase adjustment or motion correction for image reconstruction. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate image quality between automatic and manual CCTA reconstruction in a 0.25 second rotation time, 16 cm coverage, single-beat, CT scanner with automated phase selection and AI-assisted motion correction. METHODS: CCTA exams of 535 consecutive patients were included. All exams were first reconstructed with an automatically selected phase. If there was an unacceptable motion artifact, a manual reconstruction process was performed by radiologists. Additionally, automatic image series which consist of auto-phase selection and a follow-up motion correction were reconstructed. For these two manual and automatic image series, a four-point Likert scale rating system was used to evaluate image quality of the coronary artery segment by two experienced radiologists, according to the 18-segment model. RESULTS: Fifty-one patients (9.5%) did not have satisfactory image quality after auto-phase selection. In these patients, the heart rate during scanning was higher (78.3 +/- 18.4 bpm) than in the remaining 484 patients (68.9 +/- 13.1 bpm). Overall, 734 out of the 918 vessel segments were identified for quality evaluation among 51 patients. Automatic and manual image series were rated as having average Likert scores of 3.48 +/- 0.62 and 3.32 +/- 0.67 (P < 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Using a 0.25 second rotation speed, 16 cm z-coverage, CT scanner installed with an AI-assisted motion correction algorithm, the automatic image reconstruction with scanner equipped auto-phase-selection and motion correction algorithm outperforms manually controlled image reconstruction by radiologists. This suggests that the traditional CCTA exam reconstruction workflow could be altered allowing less radiologist involvement and becoming more efficient.