Characterizing the Radiation Dose to Measurement Accuracy Relationship across Multiple Metrics in Opportunistic Chest CT

TL;DR

This study investigates how reduced-dose opportunistic chest CT impacts measurement accuracy, identifying specific dose-related failure modes and quantifying the robustness of various clinical metrics at low radiation levels.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of dose-performance relationships and disentangles the effects of HU bias and segmentation failure on measurement accuracy in low-dose CT.

Findings

High accuracy maintained at CXR-equivalent dose for most metrics

Bias correction significantly improves classification accuracy

Ultra-low doses reduce robustness of certain clinical measurements

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to characterize the dose-performance relationship for opportunistic CT and disentangle the contributions of segmentation failure and dose-dependent HU bias to performance degradation. Methods: Simulated low-dose CT images at 1-75% of full dose were generated from 50 paired full- and low-dose chest CT scans. An independent dataset of 22 paired PCCT acquisitions at lung cancer screening (LCS) and chest x-ray-equivalent (CXR) dose levels provided parallel real-world evaluation. Multiple quantitative disease metrics were obtained using deep learning-based segmentation followed by quantitative metric extraction. Classification performance was evaluated against full-dose reference standards, with additional analyses isolating the contributions of segmentation error and HU bias. Agreement between dose levels was assessed using Bland-Altman and correlation analyses. Results: Mean HU metrics maintained classification accuracy to CXR-equivalent dose (3%); bias correction improved accuracy from 88% to 96% for hepatic steatosis and from 84% to 90% for sarcopenia. Trabecular bone attenuation maintained 98% accuracy at LCS dose. Volume metrics (cardiomegaly) achieved 94% accuracy at CXR-equivalent dose. Threshold-based metrics required LCS dose for reliable classification; bias correction improved accuracy from 58% to 92%. Coronary artery calcification scoring reached 96% accuracy at LCS dose. In both Mayo and PCCT datasets, agreement analyses demonstrated strong correlation for all metrics except coronary artery calcification. Conclusions: Opportunistic CT is feasible at reduced dose levels though it becomes less robust at ultra-low doses. Distinct failure modes are caused by HU bias or segmentation failure and depend on the clinical task. Providers should be aware of these task-specific limitations when designing opportunistic screening programs.