Phenotyping calcification in vascular tissues using artificial intelligence

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ramezanpour, Mehdi, Robertson, Anne M., Tobe, Yasutaka, Jia, Xiaowei, Cebral, Juan R.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Ramezanpour, Mehdi
Robertson, Anne M.
Tobe, Yasutaka
Jia, Xiaowei
Cebral, Juan R.
author_facet Ramezanpour, Mehdi
Robertson, Anne M.
Tobe, Yasutaka
Jia, Xiaowei
Cebral, Juan R.
contents Vascular calcification is implicated as an important factor in major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), including heart attack and stroke. A controversy remains over how to integrate the diverse forms of vascular calcification into clinical risk assessment tools. Even the commonly used calcium score for coronary arteries, which assumes risk scales positively with total calcification, has important inconsistencies. Fundamental studies are needed to determine how risk is influenced by the diverse calcification phenotypes. However, studies of these kinds are hindered by the lack of high-throughput, objective, and non-destructive tools for classifying calcification in imaging data sets. Here, we introduce a new classification system for phenotyping calcification along with a semi-automated, non-destructive pipeline that can distinguish these phenotypes in even atherosclerotic tissues. The pipeline includes a deep-learning-based framework for segmenting lipid pools in noisy micro-CT images and an unsupervised clustering framework for categorizing calcification based on size, clustering, and topology. This approach is illustrated for five vascular specimens, providing phenotyping for thousands of calcification particles across as many as 3200 images in less than seven hours. Average Dice Similarity Coefficients of 0.96 and 0.87 could be achieved for tissue and lipid pool, respectively, with training and validation needed on only 13 images despite the high heterogeneity in these tissues. By introducing an efficient and comprehensive approach to phenotyping calcification, this work enables large-scale studies to identify a more reliable indicator of the risk of cardiovascular events, a leading cause of global mortality and morbidity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_07825
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Phenotyping calcification in vascular tissues using artificial intelligence
Ramezanpour, Mehdi
Robertson, Anne M.
Tobe, Yasutaka
Jia, Xiaowei
Cebral, Juan R.
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Quantitative Methods
Tissues and Organs
Vascular calcification is implicated as an important factor in major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), including heart attack and stroke. A controversy remains over how to integrate the diverse forms of vascular calcification into clinical risk assessment tools. Even the commonly used calcium score for coronary arteries, which assumes risk scales positively with total calcification, has important inconsistencies. Fundamental studies are needed to determine how risk is influenced by the diverse calcification phenotypes. However, studies of these kinds are hindered by the lack of high-throughput, objective, and non-destructive tools for classifying calcification in imaging data sets. Here, we introduce a new classification system for phenotyping calcification along with a semi-automated, non-destructive pipeline that can distinguish these phenotypes in even atherosclerotic tissues. The pipeline includes a deep-learning-based framework for segmenting lipid pools in noisy micro-CT images and an unsupervised clustering framework for categorizing calcification based on size, clustering, and topology. This approach is illustrated for five vascular specimens, providing phenotyping for thousands of calcification particles across as many as 3200 images in less than seven hours. Average Dice Similarity Coefficients of 0.96 and 0.87 could be achieved for tissue and lipid pool, respectively, with training and validation needed on only 13 images despite the high heterogeneity in these tissues. By introducing an efficient and comprehensive approach to phenotyping calcification, this work enables large-scale studies to identify a more reliable indicator of the risk of cardiovascular events, a leading cause of global mortality and morbidity.
title Phenotyping calcification in vascular tissues using artificial intelligence
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Quantitative Methods
Tissues and Organs
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.07825