Reliable Method Found to Detect Congenital Heart Disease for Babies in the Womb

Fig 1. A sample scoring on CT images of a 63-year-old woman from mortality group demonstrated a total score of 63. It was calculated as: for upper zone (A), 3 (consolidation) × 3 (50–75% distribution) × 2 (both right and left lungs) + 2 (ground glass opacity) ×1 (< 25% distribution) × 2 (both right and left lungs); for middle zone (B), 3 (consolidation) × 2 (25–50% distribution) × 2 (both right and left lungs) + 2 (ground glass opacity) × 2 (25–50% distribution) × 2 (both right and left lungs); for lower zone (C), 3 (consolidation) × (2 (25–50% distribution of the right lung) + 3 (50–75% distribution of the left lung)) + 2 (ground glass opacity) × (2 (25–50% distribution of the right lung) + 1 (< 25% distribution of the left lung)) Yuan et al, 2020 (CC BY 4.0)

Rustain Morgan, M.D., and colleagues show racial/ethnic disparities in use of important imaging during lung cancer diagnosis. Photo courtesy of University of Colorado Cancer Center

Figure 1: Depiction of the fully automated CT biomarkers tools used in this study. (A) Schematic depiction of the automated process for assessing fat, muscle, liver, aortic calcification, and bone from original abdominal CT scan data. (B) Case example in an asymptomatic 52-year-old man undergoing CT for colorectal cancer screening. At the time of CT screening, he had a body-mass index of 27·3 and Framingham risk score of 5% (low risk). However, several CT-based metabolic markers were indicative of underlying disease. Multivariate Cox model prediction based on these three CT-based results put the risk of cardiovascular event at 19% within 2 years, at 40% within 5 years, and at 67% within 10 years, and the risk of death at 4% within 2 years, 11% within 5 years, and 27% within 10 years. At longitudinal clinical follow-up, the patient suffered an acute myocardial infarction 3 years after this initial CT and died 12 years after CT at the age of 64 years. (C) Contrast-enhanced CT performed 7 months before death for minor trauma was interpreted as negative but does show significant progression of vascular calcification, visceral fat, and hepatic steatosis. HU=Hounsfield units.