Marie Lannelongue Hospital of Paris Saint-Joseph Hospital Group (Paris, France) and Incepto, a European specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) applied to the medical field, recently announced the creation of ARVA (Augmented radiology for vascular aneurysm), a novel solution for automatic measurement of the maximum diameter of the aorta.
ARVA was developed by surgeons from the Paris Saint Joseph Hospital Group and engineers. According to a press release, this new application is the first solution in the world to fully automate the measurement of aortic aneurysms, providing radiologists and surgeons with a particularly effective aid in the diagnosis and follow-up of aneurysms.
The press release details that ARVA uses a dozen algorithms trained on a base of more than 1,000 scans annotated by experts to generate a pre-filled report in DICOM format that can be integrated into the radiologist or surgeon’s workflow.
“Before ARVA, in order to get accurate measurements of aortic diameter, we had to spend a lot of time analysing the scans. These measurements are complicated because in the presence of an aneurysm, the aorta is often tortuous. The AI we developed with Incepto is a tool that allows us to have precise and reproducible measurements of the diameter of the aorta and therefore to determine whether surgery is necessary,” says Dominique Fabre, surgeon at the Marie Lannelongue Hospital.
ARVA provides automatic measurements of the diameters per segment (S1 to S7) of the entire aorta, from its root near the heart to its division into two iliac arteries in the abdomen, the press release continues. In addition, it adds that ARVA provides a report including a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the aorta, a schematic representation of the aorta by segment, stent detection, measurement of the largest diameter by segment and an oblique section of the largest diameter detected. The release specifies that one of the major benefits of ARVA is the comparison of measurements between different scans performed by the patient, with standardisation of the measurement and time saving for surgeons and radiologists.
ARVA is secure, implemented in the cloud and CE marked class I, according to the release. A first clinical study, published in the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, demonstrated the reliability of ARVA measurements on healthy and pathological aortas with and without stents, showing a median deviation of 1.2mm compared to the measurement performed by an expert. The median deviation between the six other doctors who participated in the study was 1.4mm.
“Since its inception in 2018, we have put forward a worldview of AI solutions rooted in collaboration between data scientists and physicians. Our main goal has always been to develop solutions that concretely help physicians and meet a real need. In line with this ambition, ARVA is the result of exciting work with the outstanding surgeons of the Marie Lannelongue Hospital whose driving force is excellence in patient care,” notes Gaspard d’Assignies, co-founder and chief medical officer of Incepto.
“This first version of ARVA will allow us to be more precise in our surgical indications, to save precious time on a daily basis, and to have at our disposal a document that will allow us to better inform patients. Future versions under development will revolutionise our profession, in particular with the automatic monitoring of aortic volumes. This is just the beginning of the AI adventure in medical imaging”, concludes Stéphan Haulon, head of the Aortic and Vascular Surgery Department at the Marie Lannelongue Hospital.
