Reply to the letter by Ben F. Bulten et al. regarding 'Interobserver Variability of Heart-to-Mediastinum Ratio in I-123 MIBG Sympathetic Imaging'

摘要

We appreciate the favorable remarks by Dr. Bulten et al. regarding our article and proposed approaches for drawing region of interest (ROI) when computing heart-to-mediastinal ratio (H/M ratio) in MIBG cardiac sympathetic imaging [1, 2]. The authors applied two of our proposed approaches (the "whole heart ROI" and the "small anterior wall ROI") in 30 pediatric patients at their own institution, and verified that the use of both ROI definition methods in children provided an almost perfect interobserver agreement concerning H/M ratio. In addition, they found very high intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for both methods, although the "whole heart ROI" approach was better, and the within-patient ICC ratio was 0.865.