Texture analysis of acute myocardial infarction with CT: first experience study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the feasibility and accuracy of texture analysis to distinguish through objective and quantitative image information between healthy and infarcted myocardium with computed tomography (CT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty patients (5 females; mean age 56±10years) with proven acute myocardial infarction (MI) and 20 patients (8 females; mean age 42±15years) with no cardiac abnormalities (hereafter termed controls) underwent contrast-enhanced cardiac CT. Short axis CT images of the left ventricle (LV) were reconstructed at the slice thicknesses 1mm, 2mm, and 5mm. Two independent, blinded readers segmented the LV in controls and patients. Texture analysis was performed yielding first-level features based on the histogram (variance, skewness, kurtosis, entropy), second-level features based on the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) (contrast, correlation, energy and homogeneity), and third-level features based on the gray-level run-length matrix (GLRLM). RESULTS: Inter-and intrareader agreement was good to excellent for all histogram (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC):0.70-0.93) and for all GLCM features (ICC:0.66-0.99), and was variable for the GLRLM features (ICC:-0.12-0.99). Univariate analysis showed significant differences between patients and controls for 2/4 histogram features, 3/4 GLCM and for 6/11 GLRLM features and all assessed slice thicknesses (all,p