Active contours extension and similarity indicators for improved 3D segmentation of thyroid ultrasound images

P. Poudel; A. Illanes; C. Arens; C. Hansen; M. Friebe

doi:10.1117/12.2254029

13 March 2017 Active contours extension and similarity indicators for improved 3D segmentation of thyroid ultrasound images

P. Poudel, A. Illanes, C. Arens, C. Hansen, M. Friebe

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10138, Medical Imaging 2017: Imaging Informatics for Healthcare, Research, and Applications; 1013803 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2254029
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2017, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Thyroid segmentation in tracked 2D ultrasound (US) using active contours has a low segmentation accuracy mainly due to the fact that smaller structures cannot be efficiently recognized and segmented. To address this issue, we propose a new similarity indicator with the main objective to provide information to the active contour algorithm concerning the regions that the active contour should continue to expand or should stop. First, a preprocessing step is carried out in order to attenuate the noise present in the US image and to increase its contrast, using histogram equalization and a median filter. In the second step, active contours are used to segment the thyroid in each 2D image of the dataset. After performing a first segmentation, two similarity indicators (ratio of mean square error, MSE and correlation between histograms) are computed at each contour point of the initial segmented thyroid between rectangles located inside and outside the obtained contour. A threshold is used on a final indicator computed from the other two indicators to find the probable regions for further segmentation using active contours. This process is repeated until no new segmentation region is identified. Finally, all the segmented thyroid images passed through a 3D reconstruction algorithm to obtain a 3D volume segmented thyroid. The results showed that including similarity indicators based on histogram equalization and MSE between inside and outside regions of the contour can help to segment difficult areas that active contours have problem to segment.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

P. Poudel, A. Illanes, C. Arens, C. Hansen, and M. Friebe "Active contours extension and similarity indicators for improved 3D segmentation of thyroid ultrasound images", Proc. SPIE 10138, Medical Imaging 2017: Imaging Informatics for Healthcare, Research, and Applications, 1013803 (13 March 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2254029

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