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Callosal angle in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: small angular mal-rotations of the coronal plane affect measurement reliability

  • Diagnostic Neuroradiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

The callosal angle (CA) is a useful biomarker in the diagnosis and management of idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). Used incorrectly, CA measurements are variable, affecting its reliability as a clinical tool. Our objectives are to evaluate (i) reproducibility of established CA measurements between trained raters and (ii) impact of minor angular mal-rotations of the true coronal plane on CA measurements.

Methods

CAs were measured by two independent raters on three-dimensional isovolumetric T1-weighted brain MRI of NPH patients and healthy controls using the established true coronal plane reformatted orthogonal to the plane containing the anterior-posterior commissural (AC-PC) line at the level of the posterior commissure. CA changes were subsequently evaluated when the coronal plane was mal-rotated by ± 5° and ± 10° in anterior-posterior and clockwise-anticlockwise directions. Inter-rater reliability of CA measurements was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results

On the true coronal plane, inter-rater ICC was excellent (0.973) for NPH patients and good (0.875) for controls. On mal-rotated coronal plane setups, ICC for CA was worse in controls (0.484–0.886) than NPH (0.879–0.981) groups and in clockwise-anticlockwise (0.484–0.956) than anterior-posterior (0.503–0.981) mal-rotations. CA changes secondary to mal-rotations from the true coronal plane were significant in NPH patients (P < 0.0001 to 0.0378) but not in controls (P > 0.1).

Conclusion

This is the first demonstration of how small angular mal-rotations of the coronal plane used for CA measurement affect its value and inter-rater reliability, highlighting the importance of a standardized protocol when measuring the CA in NPH workup.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Radiography fraternity in the Singapore General Hospital for their strong support in this collaborative work.

Funding

National Medical Research Council, Singapore (NMRC/TA/0024/2013; NMRC/CSI/0006/2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, Singapore, 169608, Singapore

    Weiling Lee, Amanda Lee, Nicholas Yu Xuan Ong, Robert Chen & Ling Ling Chan

  2. Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore

    Huihua Li, Nicole Keong, Robert Chen & Ling Ling Chan

  3. Health Services Research Unit, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

    Huihua Li

  4. Department of Neurosurgery, National Neuroscience Institute, Singapore, Singapore

    Nicole Keong

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  1. Weiling Lee
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  2. Amanda Lee
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Correspondence to Ling Ling Chan.

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All procedures performed in the studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies approved by the SingHealth Centralized Institutional Review Board (2016/2627 and 2015/2587).

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Lee, W., Lee, A., Li, H. et al. Callosal angle in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: small angular mal-rotations of the coronal plane affect measurement reliability. Neuroradiology 63, 1659–1667 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-021-02658-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-021-02658-2

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