Abstract for presentation at 38th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nuclear Medicine 2008

Comparison of Software Analysis in Adult Renal Studies

  • Ms Amber Bidner, Westmead Hospital, Australia
  • Mrs Laura Torales, Westmead Hospital, Australia
  • Robert Barnett, Westmead Hospital, Australia
  • Dr Simon Gruenewald, Department of Nuclear Medicine, P.E.T. and Ultrasound, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia

    • We compared two software analysis programs for the processing of adult renal DTPA studies. The comparison was part of a broader quality assurance program for the migration from Siemens ICON workstations to a mixture of E.Soft and custom written software. Both normal and abnormal populations were investigated. An initial retrospective study (n=50) did not show a good correlation in results between the two methods when using the paired T-test. The large standard deviation of the difference between the two methods was attributed to the small number of abnormal studies.

    A more detailed investigation with two operators processing each study (n=20) by both methods indicated that inter-operator error had a significant contribution. The Bland-Altman method of analysis produced a compelling case that the two programs were similar. The differential uptake did not vary by more than +/- 5% (p=0.05). The output efficiency, time to peak, mean transit time and residual activity had larger variability due to a few outliers. These were assessed on a case by case basis and often a clinical or technical explanation was found.

    This investigation highlighted the difficulty in directly comparing two very sensitive methods of analysis and compliments previous phantom and simulation quality assurance techniques.

    Conference Organiser - ICMS Pty Ltd