An Automated Method for Detecting the Scar Tissue in the Left Ventricular Endocardial Wall Using Deep Learning Approach

Abstract

Background: Image evaluation of scar tissue plays a significant role in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. Segmentation of the scar tissue is the first step towards evaluating the morphology of the scar tissue. Then, with the use of CT images, the deep learning approach can be applied to identify possible scar tissue in the left ventricular endocardial wall. Objective: To develop an automated method for detecting the endocardial scar tissue in the left ventricular using Deep learning approach. Method: Pixel values of the endocardial wall for each image in the sequence were extracted. Morphological operations, including defining regions of the endocardial wall of the LV where scar tissue could predominate, were performed. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) is a deep learning application, which allowed choosing appropriate features from delayed enhancement cardiac CT images to distinguish between endocardial scar and healthy tissues of the LV by applying pixel value-based concepts. Result: We achieved 89.23% accuracy, 91.11% sensitivity, and 87.75% specificity in the detection of endocardial scars using the CNN-based method. Conclusion: Our findings reveal that the CNN-based method yielded robust accuracies in LV endocardial scar detection, which is currently the most extensively used pixel-based method of deep learning. This study provides a new direction for the assessment of scar tissue in imaging modalities and provides a potential avenue for clinical adaptations of these algorithms. Additionally this methodology, in comparison with those in the literature, provides specific advantages in its translational ability to clinical use.