1,028 research outputs found
Cloud-Based Benchmarking of Medical Image Analysis
Medical imagin
Unsupervised Lesion Detection via Image Restoration with a Normative Prior
Unsupervised lesion detection is a challenging problem that requires
accurately estimating normative distributions of healthy anatomy and detecting
lesions as outliers without training examples. Recently, this problem has
received increased attention from the research community following the advances
in unsupervised learning with deep learning. Such advances allow the estimation
of high-dimensional distributions, such as normative distributions, with higher
accuracy than previous methods.The main approach of the recently proposed
methods is to learn a latent-variable model parameterized with networks to
approximate the normative distribution using example images showing healthy
anatomy, perform prior-projection, i.e. reconstruct the image with lesions
using the latent-variable model, and determine lesions based on the differences
between the reconstructed and original images. While being promising, the
prior-projection step often leads to a large number of false positives. In this
work, we approach unsupervised lesion detection as an image restoration problem
and propose a probabilistic model that uses a network-based prior as the
normative distribution and detect lesions pixel-wise using MAP estimation. The
probabilistic model punishes large deviations between restored and original
images, reducing false positives in pixel-wise detections. Experiments with
gliomas and stroke lesions in brain MRI using publicly available datasets show
that the proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art unsupervised
methods by a substantial margin, +0.13 (AUC), for both glioma and stroke
detection. Extensive model analysis confirms the effectiveness of MAP-based
image restoration.Comment: Extended version of 'Unsupervised Lesion Detection via Image
Restoration with a Normative Prior' (MIDL2019
Computational Methods for Segmentation of Multi-Modal Multi-Dimensional Cardiac Images
Segmentation of the heart structures helps compute the cardiac contractile function quantified via the systolic and diastolic volumes, ejection fraction, and myocardial mass, representing a reliable diagnostic value. Similarly, quantification of the myocardial mechanics throughout the cardiac cycle, analysis of the activation patterns in the heart via electrocardiography (ECG) signals, serve as good cardiac diagnosis indicators. Furthermore, high quality anatomical models of the heart can be used in planning and guidance of minimally invasive interventions under the assistance of image guidance.
The most crucial step for the above mentioned applications is to segment the ventricles and myocardium from the acquired cardiac image data. Although the manual delineation of the heart structures is deemed as the gold-standard approach, it requires significant time and effort, and is highly susceptible to inter- and intra-observer variability. These limitations suggest a need for fast, robust, and accurate semi- or fully-automatic segmentation algorithms. However, the complex motion and anatomy of the heart, indistinct borders due to blood flow, the presence of trabeculations, intensity inhomogeneity, and various other imaging artifacts, makes the segmentation task challenging.
In this work, we present and evaluate segmentation algorithms for multi-modal, multi-dimensional cardiac image datasets. Firstly, we segment the left ventricle (LV) blood-pool from a tri-plane 2D+time trans-esophageal (TEE) ultrasound acquisition using local phase based filtering and graph-cut technique, propagate the segmentation throughout the cardiac cycle using non-rigid registration-based motion extraction, and reconstruct the 3D LV geometry. Secondly, we segment the LV blood-pool and myocardium from an open-source 4D cardiac cine Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) dataset by incorporating average atlas based shape constraint into the graph-cut framework and iterative segmentation refinement. The developed fast and robust framework is further extended to perform right ventricle (RV) blood-pool segmentation from a different open-source 4D cardiac cine MRI dataset. Next, we employ convolutional neural network based multi-task learning framework to segment the myocardium and regress its area, simultaneously, and show that segmentation based computation of the myocardial area is significantly better than that regressed directly from the network, while also being more interpretable. Finally, we impose a weak shape constraint via multi-task learning framework in a fully convolutional network and show improved segmentation performance for LV, RV and myocardium across healthy and pathological cases, as well as, in the challenging apical and basal slices in two open-source 4D cardiac cine MRI datasets.
We demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed segmentation methods by comparing the obtained results against the provided gold-standard manual segmentations, as well as with other competing segmentation methods
Symbiotic deep learning for medical image analysis with applications in real-time diagnosis for fetal ultrasound screening
The last hundred years have seen a monumental rise in the power and capability of machines to
perform intelligent tasks in the stead of previously human operators. This rise is not expected
to slow down any time soon and what this means for society and humanity as a whole remains
to be seen. The overwhelming notion is that with the right goals in mind, the growing influence
of machines on our every day tasks will enable humanity to give more attention to the truly
groundbreaking challenges that we all face together. This will usher in a new age of human
machine collaboration in which humans and machines may work side by side to achieve greater
heights for all of humanity. Intelligent systems are useful in isolation, but the true benefits of
intelligent systems come to the fore in complex systems where the interaction between humans
and machines can be made seamless, and it is this goal of symbiosis between human and machine
that may democratise complex knowledge, which motivates this thesis. In the recent past, datadriven
methods have come to the fore and now represent the state-of-the-art in many different
fields. Alongside the shift from rule-based towards data-driven methods we have also seen a
shift in how humans interact with these technologies. Human computer interaction is changing
in response to data-driven methods and new techniques must be developed to enable the same
symbiosis between man and machine for data-driven methods as for previous formula-driven
technology.
We address five key challenges which need to be overcome for data-driven human-in-the-loop
computing to reach maturity. These are (1) the ’Categorisation Challenge’ where we examine
existing work and form a taxonomy of the different methods being utilised for data-driven
human-in-the-loop computing; (2) the ’Confidence Challenge’, where data-driven methods must
communicate interpretable beliefs in how confident their predictions are; (3) the ’Complexity
Challenge’ where the aim of reasoned communication becomes increasingly important as the
complexity of tasks and methods to solve also increases; (4) the ’Classification Challenge’ in
which we look at how complex methods can be separated in order to provide greater reasoning
in complex classification tasks; and finally (5) the ’Curation Challenge’ where we challenge the
assumptions around bottleneck creation for the development of supervised learning methods.Open Acces
Deep Learning for Automated Medical Image Analysis
Medical imaging is an essential tool in many areas of medical applications,
used for both diagnosis and treatment. However, reading medical images and
making diagnosis or treatment recommendations require specially trained medical
specialists. The current practice of reading medical images is labor-intensive,
time-consuming, costly, and error-prone. It would be more desirable to have a
computer-aided system that can automatically make diagnosis and treatment
recommendations. Recent advances in deep learning enable us to rethink the ways
of clinician diagnosis based on medical images. In this thesis, we will
introduce 1) mammograms for detecting breast cancers, the most frequently
diagnosed solid cancer for U.S. women, 2) lung CT images for detecting lung
cancers, the most frequently diagnosed malignant cancer, and 3) head and neck
CT images for automated delineation of organs at risk in radiotherapy. First,
we will show how to employ the adversarial concept to generate the hard
examples improving mammogram mass segmentation. Second, we will demonstrate how
to use the weakly labeled data for the mammogram breast cancer diagnosis by
efficiently design deep learning for multi-instance learning. Third, the thesis
will walk through DeepLung system which combines deep 3D ConvNets and GBM for
automated lung nodule detection and classification. Fourth, we will show how to
use weakly labeled data to improve existing lung nodule detection system by
integrating deep learning with a probabilistic graphic model. Lastly, we will
demonstrate the AnatomyNet which is thousands of times faster and more accurate
than previous methods on automated anatomy segmentation.Comment: PhD Thesi
Semi-automated learning strategies for large-scale segmentation of histology and other big bioimaging stacks and volumes
Labelled high-resolution datasets are becoming increasingly common and necessary in different areas of biomedical imaging. Examples include: serial histology and ex-vivo MRI for atlas building, OCT for studying the human brain, and micro X-ray for tissue engineering. Labelling such datasets, typically, requires manual delineation of a very detailed set of regions of interest on a large number of sections or slices. This process is tedious, time-consuming, not reproducible and rather inefficient due to the high similarity of adjacent sections.
In this thesis, I explore the potential of a semi-automated slice level segmentation framework and a suggestive region level framework which aim to speed up the segmentation process of big bioimaging datasets. The thesis includes two well validated, published, and widely used novel methods and one algorithm which did not yield an improvement compared to the current state-of the-art.
The slice-wise method, SmartInterpol, consists of a probabilistic model for semi-automated segmentation of stacks of 2D images, in which the user manually labels a sparse set of sections (e.g., one every n sections), and lets the algorithm complete the segmentation for other sections automatically. The proposed model integrates in a principled manner two families of segmentation techniques that have been very successful in brain imaging: multi-atlas segmentation and convolutional neural networks.
Labelling every structure on a sparse set of slices is not necessarily optimal, therefore I also introduce a region level active learning framework which requires the labeller to annotate one region of interest on one slice at the time. The framework exploits partial annotations, weak supervision, and realistic estimates of class and section-specific annotation effort in order to greatly reduce the time it takes to produce accurate segmentations for large histological datasets.
Although both frameworks have been created targeting histological datasets, they have been successfully applied to other big bioimaging datasets, reducing labelling effort by up to 60−70% without compromising accuracy
Segmentation of pelvic structures from preoperative images for surgical planning and guidance
Prostate cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies globally and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in males in the developed world. In recent decades, many techniques have been proposed for prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment. With the development of imaging technologies such as CT and MRI, image-guided procedures have become increasingly important as a means to improve clinical outcomes. Analysis of the preoperative images and construction of 3D models prior to treatment would help doctors to better localize and visualize the structures of interest, plan the procedure, diagnose disease and guide the surgery or therapy. This requires efficient and robust medical image analysis and segmentation technologies to be developed.
The thesis mainly focuses on the development of segmentation techniques in pelvic MRI for image-guided robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy and external-beam radiation therapy. A fully automated multi-atlas framework is proposed for bony pelvis segmentation in MRI, using the guidance of MRI AE-SDM. With the guidance of the AE-SDM, a multi-atlas segmentation algorithm is used to delineate the bony pelvis in a new \ac{MRI} where there is no CT available. The proposed technique outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms for MRI bony pelvis segmentation. With the SDM of pelvis and its segmented surface, an accurate 3D pelvimetry system is designed and implemented to measure a comprehensive set of pelvic geometric parameters for the examination of the relationship between these parameters and the difficulty of robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. This system can be used in both manual and automated manner with a user-friendly interface.
A fully automated and robust multi-atlas based segmentation has also been developed to delineate the prostate in diagnostic MR scans, which have large variation in both intensity and shape of prostate. Two image analysis techniques are proposed, including patch-based label fusion with local appearance-specific atlases and multi-atlas propagation via a manifold graph on a database of both labeled and unlabeled images when limited labeled atlases are available. The proposed techniques can achieve more robust and accurate segmentation results than other multi-atlas based methods.
The seminal vesicles are also an interesting structure for therapy planning, particularly for external-beam radiation therapy. As existing methods fail for the very onerous task of segmenting the seminal vesicles, a multi-atlas learning framework via random decision forests with graph cuts refinement has further been proposed to solve this difficult problem. Motivated by the performance of this technique, I further extend the multi-atlas learning to segment the prostate fully automatically using multispectral (T1 and T2-weighted) MR images via hybrid \ac{RF} classifiers and a multi-image graph cuts technique. The proposed method compares favorably to the previously proposed multi-atlas based prostate segmentation.
The work in this thesis covers different techniques for pelvic image segmentation in MRI. These techniques have been continually developed and refined, and their application to different specific problems shows ever more promising results.Open Acces
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