Inter-operator agreement of functional parameter between medical student and professional nuclear cardiologist measured with newly developed freely available myocardial gated SPECT analysis program (Heart Function View)

Objectives To validate newly developed freely available automatic gated-SPECT analysis program (Heart Function View; HFV), inter-operator agreement between medical student and professional nuclear cardiologist was analyzed.

Methods 76 consecutive patient with suspected coronary artery disease were studied. All the patients received stress/rest gated MPI study using Tc-99m tetrofosmin or MIBI. All the data were anonymized and analyzed with HFV version 1.0 software and pFAST2 (Perfusion and Function Assessments by myocardial SPECT ver2) by a medical student and a experienced nuclear cardiologist. Agreements of LVEF, EDV, ESV were analyzed. Same parameters measured with QGS software by nuclear technologist were also compared.

Results Both HFV and pFAST showed good agreement between medical student and nuclear cardiologist for all the functional parameters, but slightly better in HFV (LVEF; R²=0.97 vs. 0.87, EDV; R²=0.99 vs. 0.91, ESV; R²=0.99 vs. 0.95 for HFV and pFAST2 respectively). Bland-Altman plot between QGS and HFV, QGS and pFAST2 showed better agreement with QGS and HFV than QGS and pFAST2. Better agreement with HFV may be the result of easier operation and interface than that of pFAST2.

Conclusions Newly developed freely available gated MPI analysis program, HFV, is easily operable even for non-well trained medical student with reliable quantitative capability. HFV may work not only for low-cost replacement of QGS but also for educational tool for medical students.