Fully Automated and Explainable Measurement of Liver Surface Nodularity in CT: Utility for Staging Hepatic Fibrosis.

Rationale And Objectives: In the United States, cirrhosis was the 12th leading cause of death in 2016. Despite end-stage cirrhosis being irreversible, earlier stages of hepatic fibrosis can be reversed via early diagnosis and intervention. The objective is to investigate the utility of a fully automated technique to measure liver surface nodularity (LSN) for staging hepatic fibrosis (stages F0-F4).

Materials And Methods: In this retrospective study, a dataset consisting of patients with multiple etiologies of liver disease collected at Institution-A (METAVIR F0-F4, 2000-2016) was used. The LSN was automatically measured in contrast-enhanced CT volumes and compared against scores from a manual tool. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) was used to distinguish between clinically significant fibrosis (≥ F2), advanced fibrosis (≥F3), and end-stage cirrhosis (F4).

Results: The study sample had 480 patients (304 men, 176 women, mean age, 49±9). Automatically derived LSN scores progressively increased with the fibrosis stage: F0 (1.64 [mean]±1.13 [standard deviation]), F1 (2.16±2.39), F2 (2.17±2.55), F3 (2.23±2.52), and F4 (4.21±2.94). For discriminating significant fibrosis (≥F2), advanced fibrosis (≥F3), and cirrhosis (F4), the automated tool achieved ROC AUCs of 73.9%, 82.5%, and 87.8% respectively. The sensitivity and specificity for significant fibrosis (nodularity threshold 1.51) was 85.2% and 73.3%, advanced fibrosis (nodularity threshold 1.73) was 84.2% and 79.5%, and cirrhosis (nodularity threshold 2.18) was 86.5% and 79.5%. Statistical tests revealed that the automated LSN scores distinguished patients with advanced fibrosis (p<.001) and cirrhosis (p<.001).

Conclusion: The fully automated LSN measurement retained its predictive power for distinguishing between advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis. The clinical impact is that the fully automated LSN measurement may be useful for early interventions and population-based studies. It can automatically predict the fibrosis stage in ∼45 s in comparison to the ∼2 min needed to manually measure the LSN in a CT volume.