Quantification of heterogeneity observed in medical images

BMC Medical Imaging

Table 1 Automated, shape-aware ranking versus ranking by human experts

		Shape aware automated ranking
		Shape aware	Shape unaware
Set	Area (px)	Oncologist	Resident	Professional
A	0–30	0.015	0.020	0.121
B	30–50	0.100	0.025	0.020
C	50–75	0.003	0.185	0.075
D	50–75	0.003	0.220	0.288
E	75–100	0.003	0.375	0.423
F	100-125	0.083	0.250	0.250
G	125–300	0.050	0.250	0.220
Mean		0.04±0.02	0.19±0.05	0.20±0.05

The correlation between the heterogeneity rankings computed via the shape-aware ζ statistic and those done by human experts was quantified via the Spearman rank test. The p-values given in columns 3–5 are the likelihood that observed correlations are due entirely to random chance. The agreement between the shape-aware automated ranking and the shape aware expert is outstanding.

ISSN: 1471-2342