Randy Richardson
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, USA
Title: Color Coded 3-D Models of Cardiac Anatomy Improves Identification of Structures in Congenital Heart Disease.
Biography
Biography: Randy Richardson
Abstract
Objective
Cardiac CT angiography (CCTA) with three dimensional reconstructions is quickly becoming the new standard for identification and characterization of congenital heart diseases. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate effectiveness of standardized color-coding of the anatomical structures in 3-D reconstructions of congenital heart diseases using CCTA.
Materials and Methods
An easy-to-follow color coding scheme was implemented for the various anatomical structures. The aorta and its branches (including coronaries) were colored bright red. The pulmonary arteries and veins were colored dark blue and dark pink respectively. The ventricles were colored in a lighter shade of their respective outflow tracts to delineate the two chambers. Hence, the left ventricle was colored a lighter shade of red and the right ventricle was colored a lighter shade of blue. The left and right atria were colored an even lighter shade of red and blue respectively. The tracheo-bronchial tree was depicted in yellow.
CCTA data of 5, randomly selected, patients with congenital heart disease was selected. 3D reconstructions of the anatomy were performed with no color, random color, and standardized color schemes (as described above), using commercially available workstations. Total of 12 basic thoracic structures were labeled on each color scheme.
Three groups of 40 second year medical students each were randomly selected and shown one of the above three color schemes respectively. They were asked to identify the labeled structures, and their responses were statistically analyzed using ANOVA test.