Intra- and Interobserver Reliability and Variability of Femoral Artery Pseudoaneurysm Measurements Between Pre- and Postprocessed B-mode Sonographic Images:

The objective was to enhance the contrast and segment the femoral artery pseudoaneurysm (FAP) area from patients' ultrasonography (US) images. In addition, this study compared the intra- and interobserver reliability and variability of the FAP measurements from the original, contrast-enhanced, and segmented US. Retrospectively, 25 FAP sonograms were evaluated by four observers (two trained and two novice). They twice measured the FAP body width, neck width, and length from original, enhanced, and segmented US. The intra- and interobserver reliability for measuring FAP body width, neck width, and neck length improved by 10% after enhancing the original 2D US contrast and segmenting the region of interest across all observers. Also, the intra- and interobserver variability among measurements across all observers decreased by 44%. Using US processing was more profound for novice observers (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC], 0.76-0.93) compared to trained observers (ICC, 0.94-0.99). US postprocessing resulted in a decrease in variability for FAP measurements.