Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39899269›Full record

ArticleCancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer Center

Automated Patient-specific Quality Assurance for Automated Segmentation of Organs at Risk in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Radiotherapy.

Yixuan Wang, Jiang Hu, Lixin Chen, Dandan Zhang, Jinhan Zhu

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Cancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer Center. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Yixuan WangState Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, P. R. China.
Jiang HuState Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, P. R. China.
Lixin ChenState Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, P. R. China.
Dandan ZhangState Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, P. R. China.
Jinhan ZhuState Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, P. R. China.ORCID 0000-0002-5011-196X

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionPrecision radiotherapy relies on accurate segmentation of tumor targets and organs at risk (OARs). Clinicians manually review automatically delineated structures on a case-by-case basis, a time-consuming process dependent on reviewer experience and alertness. This study proposes a general process for automated threshold generation for structural evaluation indicators and patient-specific quality assurance (QA) for automated segmentation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

methodsThe patient-specific QA process for automated segmentation involves determining the confidence limit and error structure highlight stage. Three expert physicians segmented 17 OARs using computed tomography images of NPC and compared them using the Dice similarity coefficient, the maximum Hausdorff distance, and the mean distance to agreement. For each OAR, the 95% confidence interval was calculated as the confidence limit for each indicator. If two or more evaluation indicators (N2) or one or more evaluation indicators (N1) exceeded the confidence limits, the structure segmentation result was considered abnormal. The quantitative performances of these two methods were compared with those obtained by artificially introducing small/medium and serious errors.

resultsThe sensitivity, specificity, balanced accuracy, and F-score values for N2 were 0.944 ± 0.052, 0.827 ± 0.149, 0.886 ± 0.076, and 0.936 ± 0.045, respectively, whereas those for N1 were 0.955 ± 0.045, 0.788 ± 0.189, 0.878 ± 0.096, and 0.948 ± 0.035, respectively. N2 and N1 had small/medium error detection rates of 97.67 ± 0.04% and 98.67 ± 0.04%, respectively, with a serious error detection rate of 100%.

conclusionThe proposed automated patient-specific QA process effectively detected segmentation abnormalities, particularly serious errors. These are crucial for enhancing review efficiency and automated segmentation, and for improving physician confidence in automated segmentation.

Indexed as

Nasopharyngeal CarcinomaNasopharyngeal NeoplasmsOrgans at RiskQuality Assurance, Health CareRadiotherapy Planning, Computer-AssistedHumansTomography, X-Ray Computedautomated segmentationdeep learningnasopharyngeal carcinomapatient-specific quality assuranceradiotherapy

Identifiers

PMID39899269
PMCPMC11792024

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.