Evaluation of airway measurements in phantom parenchyma and soft tissue regions

Robert A. Ochs; Hyun J. Kim; Jonathan G. Goldin; Michael F. McNitt-Gray; Matthew S. Brown

doi:10.1117/12.770660

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12 March 2008 Evaluation of airway measurements in phantom parenchyma and soft tissue regions

Robert A. Ochs, Hyun J. Kim, Jonathan G. Goldin, Michael F. McNitt-Gray, Matthew S. Brown

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Proceedings Volume 6916, Medical Imaging 2008: Physiology, Function, and Structure from Medical Images; 691622 (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.770660
Event: Medical Imaging, 2008, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to develop a 3D airway measurement technique that can be initialized at a single point (either automatically or user defined) and to evaluate the measurement accuracy with varying imaging parameters as well as in synthetic parenchyma and soft tissue regions. This approach may have advantages over existing methods that require segmentation of the entire airway branch. METHODS: Rays are cast spherically from the initial measurement point and a range image is created of the distance to the edge of the airway lumen. The trajectory of the airway is estimated from the range image, and can be used to re-construct a 2D slice perpendicular to the airway for cross-sectional measurements. The evaluation phantom consisted of 5 tubes (3.18 to 19.05 mm in diameter and 1.59 to 3.18 mm in wall thickness) embedded in synthetic lung parenchyma and soft tissue. Images were acquired at 10 and 100 mAs at three tube orientations (0°, 45°, 90°) and were reconstructed at 0.6 and 1.5 mm slice thicknesses with both smooth and standard reconstruction kernels. RESULTS: The overall diameter and wall thickness accuracy was 0.43 ± 0.19 mm and 0.28 ± 0.15 mm respectively in parenchyma regions and 0.46 ± 0.16 mm and 0.49 ± 0.40 mm respectively in the soft tissue regions. The overall accuracy of the trajectory estimate was 0.64 ± 0.51°. The proposed technique may allow a potentially larger number of airways to be measured for research and clinical analysis than with current methods.

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Robert A. Ochs, Hyun J. Kim, Jonathan G. Goldin, Michael F. McNitt-Gray, and Matthew S. Brown "Evaluation of airway measurements in phantom parenchyma and soft tissue regions", Proc. SPIE 6916, Medical Imaging 2008: Physiology, Function, and Structure from Medical Images, 691622 (12 March 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.770660

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