Development and validation of a reliable method for automated measurements of psoas muscle volume in CT scans using deep learning-based segmentation: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objectives We aimed to develop an automated method for measuring the volume of the psoas muscle using CT to aid sarcopenia research efficiently.Methods We used a data set comprising the CT scans of 520 participants who underwent health check-ups at a health promotion centre. We developed a psoas muscle segmentation model using deep learning in a three-step process based on the nnU-Net method. The automated segmentation method was evaluated for accuracy, reliability, and time required for the measurement.Results The Dice similarity coefficient was used to compare the manual segmentation with automated segmentation; an average Dice score of 0.927 ± 0.019 was obtained, with no critical outliers. Our automated segmentation system had an average measurement time of 2 min 20 s ± 20 s, which was 48 times shorter than that of the manual measurement method (111 min 6 s ± 25 min 25 s).Conclusion We have successfully developed an automated segmentation method to measure the psoas muscle volume that ensures consistent and unbiased estimates across a wide range of CT images.