To accomplish these tasks the software automates a number of steps, which are calibrated with a small cross-sectional calcium hydroxyapatite phantom scanned simultaneously with the patient, followed by standardization that employs the patient's pool of blood and muscle in a "hybrid calibration" program. The software in background automatically computes two scoring thresholds, and statistical computations are based on voxel size and image noise.
The software detects and displays the results in a viewable 3D plaque map that shows each plaque in three planes referenced to its exact 3D location in the volume dataset. The benefit of the automation is that a 160-slice image dataset can be scored in approximately three seconds, according to the company.
