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Clinical Trial
. 2013 Aug;26(4):373-9.
doi: 10.1177/197140091302600402. Epub 2013 Aug 27.

Semiautomatic regional segmentation to measure orbital fat volumes in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy. A validation study

M Comerci  1 , A Elefante, D Strianese, R Senese, P Bonavolontà, B Alfano, B Bonavolontà, A Brunetti
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Semiautomatic regional segmentation to measure orbital fat volumes in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy. A validation study

M Comerci et al. Neuroradiol J. 2013 Aug.

Abstract

This study was designed to validate a novel semi-automated segmentation method to measure regional intra-orbital fat tissue volume in Graves' ophthalmopathy. Twenty-four orbits from 12 patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy, 24 orbits from 12 controls, ten orbits from five MRI study simulations and two orbits from a digital model were used. Following manual region of interest definition of the orbital volumes performed by two operators with different levels of expertise, an automated procedure calculated intra-orbital fat tissue volumes (global and regional, with automated definition of four quadrants). In patients with Graves' disease, clinical activity score and degree of exophthalmos were measured and correlated with intra-orbital fat volumes. Operator performance was evaluated and statistical analysis of the measurements was performed. Accurate intra-orbital fat volume measurements were obtained with coefficients of variation below 5%. The mean operator difference in total fat volume measurements was 0.56%. Patients had significantly higher intra-orbital fat volumes than controls (p<0.001 using Student's t test). Fat volumes and clinical score were significantly correlated (p<0.001). The semi-automated method described here can provide accurate, reproducible intra-orbital fat measurements with low inter-operator variation and good correlation with clinical data.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of manually selected ROIs. left, top to bottom: sagittal, coronal and transversal orthogonal cuts of the 3D ROIs, divided into the four quadrants. Right, top to bottom: sagittal, coronal and transversal orthogonal cuts of the 3D ROIs, overlaid on a T1-w image using a simple channel masking method, showing ROI voxels in green.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Plot of orbital fat volume (cc) versus exophthalmos (mm) along with the linear fitting data.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Plot of orbital fat volume (cc) versus CAS, along with the linear fitting data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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