Opportunistic CT

Diagnostic abdominal CT scans can answer specific clinical questions, however, most information in these data-rich 3D scans is not evaluated because it is invisible to the human eye or too time consuming to analyze manually. We have developed a paradigm of opportunistic CT where automated analysis of bone, fat, and muscle biomarkers is combined with the existing electronic health record (EHR) to screen patients for chronic disorders with high accuracy.

Segmentation Approaches

Abdominal CT scans enable providing information regarding the extent and distributions of adipose tissue (visceral, subcutaneous, and intra-muscular), muscle, bone mineral density of the lumbar spine, and vascular calcifications. All such measurements can be quantified using deep learning techniques using segmentation approaches or in end-to-end disease prediction models. Combining this information with a patient’s EHR can be used for future chronic disorders, especially in diseases that have multiple shared co-morbidities. We have shown that such opportunistic analysis of a CT scan can be used to predict risk of ischemic heart disease and can outperform clinical measures such as the Framingham Risk Score.

Select Publications:

  • Zambrano JM, Chaudhari A, Wentland A, Jeffrey B, Rubin D, and Patel B. Opportunistic Screening for Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Using Abdominopelvic Computed Tomography and Medical Record Data: A Multimodal Explainable Artificial Intelligence Approach. Society of Abdominal Radiology 2021 (virtual).
  • Boutin RD, Barnard RT, Kim J, Tan JC, Chaudhari A, Lenchik L. Opportunistic CT Assessment of Biological Aging: Comparing 2D vs. 3D Metrics for Muscle and Adipose Tissue. Radiological Society of North America, Chicago, 2021
  • Desai A, Boutin R, Tan J, Lenchik L, and Chaudhari A. An Evaluation of Automated Body Composition Analysis from Abdominal Computed Tomography Scans using Deep Learning. Society of Advanced Body Imaging Annual Meeting, (virtual), 2020.
  • Manzano W, Lenchik L, Chaudhari A, and Boutin R. Sarcopenia in Rheumatology – Educational Exhibit. Radiological Society of North America Annual Meeting, (virtual), 2020.