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Computer-aided lymph node segmentation in volumetric CT data.

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this work was to develop and validate a computer-aided method for the 3D segmentation of lymph nodes in CT images. The proposed method can be utilized to facilitate applications like biopsy planning, image guided radiation treatment, or assessment of response to therapy.An optimal surface finding based lymph node segmentation method was developed. Based on the approximate center point of a lymph node of interest, a graph is generated, which represents the local neighborhood around the lymph node at discrete locations (graph nodes). A cost function is calculated based on a weighted edge and region homogeneity term. By means of optimization, a surface-based segmentation of the lymph node is derived. In addition, an interactive segmentation refinement algorithm was developed, which allows the user to quickly correct segmentation errors, if needed. For assessment of segmentation accuracy, 111 lymph nodes of mediastinum, abdomen, head/neck, and axillary regions from 35 volumetric CT scans were utilized. For accuracy analysis, lymph nodes were divided into three test sets based on lymph node size and spatial resolution of the CT scan. The average lymph node size for test set I, II, and III was 1056, 1621, and 501 mm(3), respectively. Spatial resolution of test set II was lower than for test sets I and III. To generate an independent reference standard for comparison, all 111 lymph nodes were segmented by an expert with a live wire approach.All test sets were segmented with the proposed approach. Out of the 111 lymph nodes, 40 cases (36%) required computer-aided refinement of initial segmentation results. The refinement typically required 10 s per lymph node. The mean and standard deviation of the Dice coefficient for final segmentations was 0.847 ± 0.061, 0.836 ± 0.058, and 0.809 ± 0.070 for test sets I, II, and II, respectively. The average signed surface distance error was 0.023 ± 0.171, 0.394 ± 0.189, and 0.001 ± 0.146 mm for test sets I, II, and II, respectively. The time required for locating the approximate center point of a target lymph node in a scan, generating an initial OSF segmentation, and refining the segmentation, if needed, is typically less than one minute.Segmentation of lymph nodes in volumetric CT images is a challenging task due to partial volume effects, nearby strong edges, neighboring structures with similar intensity profiles and potentially inhomogeneous density of lymph nodes. The presented approach addresses many of these obstacles. In the majority of cases investigated, the initial segmentation method delivered results that did not require further processing. In addition, the computer-aided segmentation refinement framework was found to be effective in dealing with potentially occurring segmentation errors.

SUBMITTER: Beichel RR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3432102 | biostudies-other | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:OBJECTIVES: To compare the accuracy of pulmonary lobar volumetry using the conventional number of segments method and novel volumetric computer-aided diagnosis using 3D computed tomography images. METHODS: We acquired 50 consecutive preoperative 3D computed tomography examinations for lung tumours reconstructed at 1-mm slice thicknesses. We calculated the lobar volume and the emphysematous lobar volume < -950 HU of each lobe using (i) the slice-by-slice method (reference standard), (ii) number of segments method, and (iii) semi-automatic and (iv) automatic computer-aided diagnosis. We determined Pearson correlation coefficients between the reference standard and the three other methods for lobar volumes and emphysematous lobar volumes. We also compared the relative errors among the three measurement methods. RESULTS: Both semi-automatic and automatic computer-aided diagnosis results were more strongly correlated with the reference standard than the number of segments method. The correlation coefficients for automatic computer-aided diagnosis were slightly lower than those for semi-automatic computer-aided diagnosis because there was one outlier among 50 cases (2%) in the right upper lobe and two outliers among 50 cases (4%) in the other lobes. The number of segments method relative error was significantly greater than those for semi-automatic and automatic computer-aided diagnosis (P < 0.001). The computational time for automatic computer-aided diagnosis was 1/2 to 2/3 than that of semi-automatic computer-aided diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: A novel lobar volumetry computer-aided diagnosis system could more precisely measure lobar volumes than the conventional number of segments method. Because semi-automatic computer-aided diagnosis and automatic computer-aided diagnosis were complementary, in clinical use, it would be more practical to first measure volumes by automatic computer-aided diagnosis, and then use semi-automatic measurements if automatic computer-aided diagnosis failed.

Project description:PurposeTo compare machine learning methods for classifying mass lesions on mammography images that use predefined image features computed over lesion segmentations to those that leverage segmentation-free representation learning on a standard, public evaluation dataset.MethodsWe apply several classification algorithms to the public Curated Breast Imaging Subset of the Digital Database for Screening Mammography (CBIS-DDSM), in which each image contains a mass lesion. Segmentation-free representation learning techniques for classifying lesions as benign or malignant include both a Bag-of-Visual-Words (BoVW) method and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). We compare classification performance of these techniques to that obtained using two different segmentation-dependent approaches from the literature that rely on specific combinations of end classifiers (e.g. linear discriminant analysis, neural networks) and predefined features computed over the lesion segmentation (e.g. spiculation measure, morphological characteristics, intensity metrics).ResultsWe report area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AZ) values for malignancy classification on CBIS-DDSM for each technique. We find average AZ values of 0.73 for a segmentation-free BoVW method, 0.86 for a segmentation-free CNN method, 0.75 for a segmentation-dependent linear discriminant analysis of Rubber-Band Straightening Transform features, and 0.58 for a hybrid rule-based neural network classification using a small number of hand-designed features.ConclusionsWe find that malignancy classification performance on the CBIS-DDSM dataset using segmentation-free BoVW features is comparable to that of the best segmentation-dependent methods we study, but also observe that a common segmentation-free CNN model substantially and significantly outperforms each of these (p < 0.05). These results reinforce recent findings suggesting that representation learning techniques such as BoVW and CNNs are advantageous for mammogram analysis because they do not require lesion segmentation, the quality and specific characteristics of which can vary substantially across datasets. We further observe that segmentation-dependent methods achieve performance levels on CBIS-DDSM inferior to those achieved on the original evaluation datasets reported in the literature. Each of these findings reinforces the need for standardization of datasets, segmentation techniques, and model implementations in performance assessments of automated classifiers for medical imaging.

Project description:To present a computer-aided detection tool for identifying, quantifying, and evaluating tuberculosis (TB) cavities in the infected lungs from computed tomography (CT) scans.The authors' proposed method is based on a novel shape-based automated detection algorithm on CT scans followed by a fuzzy connectedness (FC) delineation procedure. In order to assess interaction between cavities and airways, the authors first roughly identified air-filled structures (airway, cavities, esophagus, etc.) by thresholding over Hounsfield unit of CT image. Then, airway and cavity structure detection was conducted within the support vector machine classification algorithm. Once airway and cavities were detected automatically, the authors extracted airway tree using a hybrid multiscale approach based on novel affinity relations within the FC framework and segmented cavities using intensity-based FC algorithm. At final step, the authors refined airway structures within the local regions of FC with finer control. Cavity segmentation results were compared to the reference truths provided by expert radiologists and cavity formation was tracked longitudinally from serial CT scans through shape and volume information automatically determined through the authors' proposed system. Morphological evolution of the cavitary TB were analyzed accordingly with this process. Finally, the authors computed the minimum distance between cavity surface and nearby airway structures by using the linear time distance transform algorithm to explore potential role of airways in cavity formation and morphological evolution.The proposed methodology was qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated on pulmonary CT images of rabbits experimentally infected with TB, and multiple markers such as cavity volume, cavity surface area, minimum distance from cavity surface to the nearest bronchial-tree, and longitudinal change of these markers (namely, morphological evolution of cavities) were determined precisely. While accuracy of the authors' cavity detection algorithm was 94.61%, airway detection part of the proposed methodology showed even higher performance by 99.8%. Dice similarity coefficients for cavitary segmentation experiments were found to be approximately 99.0% with respect to the reference truths provided by two expert radiologists (blinded to their evaluations). Moreover, the authors noted that volume derived from the authors' segmentation method was highly correlated with those provided by the expert radiologists (R(2) = 0.99757 and R(2) = 0.99496, p < 0.001, with respect to the observer 1 and observer 2) with an interobserver agreement of 98%. The authors quantitatively confirmed that cavity formation was positioned by the nearby bronchial-tree after exploring the respective spatial positions based on the minimum distance measurement. In terms of efficiency, the core algorithms take less than 2 min on a linux machine with 3.47 GHz CPU and 24 GB memory.The authors presented a fully automatic method for cavitary TB detection, quantification, and evaluation. The performance of every step of the algorithm was qualitatively and quantitatively assessed. With the proposed method, airways and cavities were automatically detected and subsequently delineated in high accuracy with heightened efficiency. Furthermore, not only morphological information of cavities were obtained through the authors' proposed framework, but their spatial relation to airways, and longitudinal analysis was also provided to get further insight on cavity formation in tuberculosis disease. To the authors' best of knowledge, this is the first study in computerized analysis of cavitary tuberculosis from CT scans.

Project description:PurposeEffective diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) relies on accurate interpretation of radiological patterns found in a chest radiograph (CXR). Lack of skilled radiologists and other resources, especially in developing countries, hinders its efficient diagnosis. Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) methods provide second opinion to the radiologists for their findings and thereby assist in better diagnosis of cancer and other diseases including TB. However, existing CAD methods for TB are based on the extraction of textural features from manually or semi-automatically segmented CXRs. These methods are prone to errors and cannot be implemented in X-ray machines for automated classification.MethodsGabor, Gist, histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and pyramid histogram of oriented gradients (PHOG) features extracted from the whole image can be implemented into existing X-ray machines to discriminate between TB and non-TB CXRs in an automated manner. Localized features were extracted for the above methods using various parameters, such as frequency range, blocks and region of interest. The performance of these features was evaluated against textural features. Two digital CXR image datasets (8-bit DA and 14-bit DB) were used for evaluating the performance of these features.ResultsGist (accuracy 94.2% for DA, 86.0% for DB) and PHOG (accuracy 92.3% for DA, 92.0% for DB) features provided better results for both the datasets. These features were implemented to develop a MATLAB toolbox, TB-Xpredict, which is freely available for academic use at http://sourceforge.net/projects/tbxpredict/. This toolbox provides both automated training and prediction modules and does not require expertise in image processing for operation.ConclusionSince the features used in TB-Xpredict do not require segmentation, the toolbox can easily be implemented in X-ray machines. This toolbox can effectively be used for the mass screening of TB in high-burden areas with improved efficiency.

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Computer-aided lymph node segmentation in volumetric CT data.

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