761 research outputs found
Attention Gated Networks: Learning to Leverage Salient Regions in Medical Images
We propose a novel attention gate (AG) model for medical image analysis that
automatically learns to focus on target structures of varying shapes and sizes.
Models trained with AGs implicitly learn to suppress irrelevant regions in an
input image while highlighting salient features useful for a specific task.
This enables us to eliminate the necessity of using explicit external
tissue/organ localisation modules when using convolutional neural networks
(CNNs). AGs can be easily integrated into standard CNN models such as VGG or
U-Net architectures with minimal computational overhead while increasing the
model sensitivity and prediction accuracy. The proposed AG models are evaluated
on a variety of tasks, including medical image classification and segmentation.
For classification, we demonstrate the use case of AGs in scan plane detection
for fetal ultrasound screening. We show that the proposed attention mechanism
can provide efficient object localisation while improving the overall
prediction performance by reducing false positives. For segmentation, the
proposed architecture is evaluated on two large 3D CT abdominal datasets with
manual annotations for multiple organs. Experimental results show that AG
models consistently improve the prediction performance of the base
architectures across different datasets and training sizes while preserving
computational efficiency. Moreover, AGs guide the model activations to be
focused around salient regions, which provides better insights into how model
predictions are made. The source code for the proposed AG models is publicly
available.Comment: Accepted for Medical Image Analysis (Special Issue on Medical Imaging
with Deep Learning). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1804.03999, arXiv:1804.0533
ATD: a multiplatform for semiautomatic 3-D detection of kidneys and their pathology in real time
This research presents a novel multi-functional system for medical Imaging-enabled Assistive Diagnosis (IAD). Although the IAD demonstrator has focused on abdominal images and supports the clinical diagnosis of kidneys using CT/MRI imaging, it can be adapted to work on image delineation, annotation and 3D real-size volumetric modelling of other organ structures such as the brain, spine, etc. The IAD provides advanced real-time 3D visualisation and measurements with fully automated functionalities as developed in two stages. In the first stage, via the clinically driven user interface, specialist clinicians use CT/MRI imaging datasets to accurately delineate and annotate the kidneys and their possible abnormalities, thus creating â3D Golden Standard Modelsâ. Based on these models, in the second stage, clinical support staff i.e. medical technicians interactively define model-based rules and parameters for the integrated âAutomatic Recognition Frameworkâ to achieve results which are closest to that of the clinicians. These specific rules and parameters are stored in âTemplatesâ and can later be used by any clinician to automatically identify organ structures i.e. kidneys and their possible abnormalities. The system also supports the transmission of these âTemplatesâ to another expert for a second opinion. A 3D model of the body, the organs and their possible pathology with real metrics is also integrated. The automatic functionality was tested on eleven MRI datasets (comprising of 286 images) and the 3D models were validated by comparing them with the metrics from the corresponding â3D Golden Standard Modelsâ. The system provides metrics for the evaluation of the results, in terms of Accuracy, Precision, Sensitivity, Specificity and Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) so as to enable benchmarking of its performance. The first IAD prototype has produced promising results as its performance accuracy based on the most widely deployed evaluation metric, DSC, yields 97% for the recognition of kidneys and 96% for their abnormalities; whilst across all the above evaluation metrics its performance ranges between 96% and 100%. Further development of the IAD system is in progress to extend and evaluate its clinical diagnostic support capability through development and integration of additional algorithms to offer fully computer-aided identification of other organs and their abnormalities based on CT/MRI/Ultra-sound Imaging
NiftyNet: a deep-learning platform for medical imaging
Medical image analysis and computer-assisted intervention problems are
increasingly being addressed with deep-learning-based solutions. Established
deep-learning platforms are flexible but do not provide specific functionality
for medical image analysis and adapting them for this application requires
substantial implementation effort. Thus, there has been substantial duplication
of effort and incompatible infrastructure developed across many research
groups. This work presents the open-source NiftyNet platform for deep learning
in medical imaging. The ambition of NiftyNet is to accelerate and simplify the
development of these solutions, and to provide a common mechanism for
disseminating research outputs for the community to use, adapt and build upon.
NiftyNet provides a modular deep-learning pipeline for a range of medical
imaging applications including segmentation, regression, image generation and
representation learning applications. Components of the NiftyNet pipeline
including data loading, data augmentation, network architectures, loss
functions and evaluation metrics are tailored to, and take advantage of, the
idiosyncracies of medical image analysis and computer-assisted intervention.
NiftyNet is built on TensorFlow and supports TensorBoard visualization of 2D
and 3D images and computational graphs by default.
We present 3 illustrative medical image analysis applications built using
NiftyNet: (1) segmentation of multiple abdominal organs from computed
tomography; (2) image regression to predict computed tomography attenuation
maps from brain magnetic resonance images; and (3) generation of simulated
ultrasound images for specified anatomical poses.
NiftyNet enables researchers to rapidly develop and distribute deep learning
solutions for segmentation, regression, image generation and representation
learning applications, or extend the platform to new applications.Comment: Wenqi Li and Eli Gibson contributed equally to this work. M. Jorge
Cardoso and Tom Vercauteren contributed equally to this work. 26 pages, 6
figures; Update includes additional applications, updated author list and
formatting for journal submissio
Towards image-guided pancreas and biliary endoscopy: Automatic multi-organ segmentation on abdominal CT with dense dilated networks
Segmentation of anatomy on abdominal CT enables patient-specific image guidance in clinical endoscopic procedures and in endoscopy training. Because robust interpatient registration of abdominal images is necessary for existing multi-atlas- and statistical-shape-model-based segmentations, but remains challenging, there is a need for automated multi-organ segmentation that does not rely on registration. We present a deep-learning-based algorithm for segmenting the liver, pancreas, stomach, and esophagus using dilated convolution units with dense skip connections and a new spatial prior. The algorithm was evaluated with an 8-fold cross-validation and compared to a joint-label-fusion-based segmentation based on Dice scores and boundary distances. The proposed algorithm yielded more accurate segmentations than the joint-label-fusion-ba sed algorithm for the pancreas (median Dice scores 66 vs 37), stomach (83 vs 72) and esophagus (73 vs 54) and marginally less accurate segmentation for the liver (92 vs 93). We conclude that dilated convolutional networks with dense skip connections can segment the liver, pancreas, stomach and esophagus from abdominal CT without image registration and have the potential to support image-guided navigation in gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures
Automatic Multi-organ Segmentation on Abdominal CT with Dense V-networks
Automatic segmentation of abdominal anatomy on computed tomography (CT) images can support diagnosis, treatment planning and treatment delivery workflows. Segmentation methods using statistical models and multi-atlas label fusion (MALF) require inter-subject image registrations which are challenging for abdominal images, but alternative methods without registration have not yet achieved higher accuracy for most abdominal organs. We present a registration-free deeplearning- based segmentation algorithm for eight organs that are relevant for navigation in endoscopic pancreatic and biliary procedures, including the pancreas, the GI tract (esophagus, stomach, duodenum) and surrounding organs (liver, spleen, left kidney, gallbladder). We directly compared the segmentation accuracy of the proposed method to existing deep learning and MALF methods in a cross-validation on a multi-centre data set with 90 subjects. The proposed method yielded significantly higher Dice scores for all organs and lower mean absolute distances for most organs, including Dice scores of 0.78 vs. 0.71, 0.74 and 0.74 for the pancreas, 0.90 vs 0.85, 0.87 and 0.83 for the stomach and 0.76 vs 0.68, 0.69 and 0.66 for the esophagus. We conclude that deep-learning-based segmentation represents a registration-free method for multi-organ abdominal CT segmentation whose accuracy can surpass current methods, potentially supporting image-guided navigation in gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures
Computational Anatomy for Multi-Organ Analysis in Medical Imaging: A Review
The medical image analysis field has traditionally been focused on the
development of organ-, and disease-specific methods. Recently, the interest in
the development of more 20 comprehensive computational anatomical models has
grown, leading to the creation of multi-organ models. Multi-organ approaches,
unlike traditional organ-specific strategies, incorporate inter-organ relations
into the model, thus leading to a more accurate representation of the complex
human anatomy. Inter-organ relations are not only spatial, but also functional
and physiological. Over the years, the strategies 25 proposed to efficiently
model multi-organ structures have evolved from the simple global modeling, to
more sophisticated approaches such as sequential, hierarchical, or machine
learning-based models. In this paper, we present a review of the state of the
art on multi-organ analysis and associated computation anatomy methodology. The
manuscript follows a methodology-based classification of the different
techniques 30 available for the analysis of multi-organs and multi-anatomical
structures, from techniques using point distribution models to the most recent
deep learning-based approaches. With more than 300 papers included in this
review, we reflect on the trends and challenges of the field of computational
anatomy, the particularities of each anatomical region, and the potential of
multi-organ analysis to increase the impact of 35 medical imaging applications
on the future of healthcare.Comment: Paper under revie
A Survey on Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis
Deep learning algorithms, in particular convolutional networks, have rapidly
become a methodology of choice for analyzing medical images. This paper reviews
the major deep learning concepts pertinent to medical image analysis and
summarizes over 300 contributions to the field, most of which appeared in the
last year. We survey the use of deep learning for image classification, object
detection, segmentation, registration, and other tasks and provide concise
overviews of studies per application area. Open challenges and directions for
future research are discussed.Comment: Revised survey includes expanded discussion section and reworked
introductory section on common deep architectures. Added missed papers from
before Feb 1st 201
Machine Learning in Medical Image Analysis
Machine learning is playing a pivotal role in medical image analysis. Many algorithms based on machine learning have been applied in medical imaging to solve classification, detection, and segmentation problems. Particularly, with the wide application of deep learning approaches, the performance of medical image analysis has been significantly improved. In this thesis, we investigate machine learning methods for two key challenges in medical image analysis: The first one is segmentation of medical images. The second one is learning with weak supervision in the context of medical imaging.
The first main contribution of the thesis is a series of novel approaches for image segmentation. First, we propose a framework based on multi-scale image patches and random forests to segment small vessel disease (SVD) lesions on computed tomography (CT) images. This framework is validated in terms of spatial similarity, estimated lesion volumes, visual score ratings and was compared with human experts. The results showed that the proposed framework performs as well as human experts. Second, we propose a generic convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture called the DRINet for medical image segmentation. The DRINet approach is robust in three different types of segmentation tasks, which are multi-class cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) segmentation on brain CT images, multi-organ segmentation on abdomen CT images, and multi-class tumour segmentation on brain magnetic resonance
(MR) images. Finally, we propose a CNN-based framework to segment acute ischemic lesions on diffusion weighted (DW)-MR images, where the lesions are highly variable in terms of position, shape, and size. Promising results were achieved on a large clinical dataset.
The second main contribution of the thesis is two novel strategies for learning with weak supervision. First, we propose a novel strategy called context restoration to make use of the images without annotations. The context restoration strategy is a proxy learning process based on the CNN, which extracts semantic features from images without using annotations. It was validated on classification, localization, and segmentation problems and was superior to existing strategies. Second, we propose a patch-based framework using multi-instance learning to distinguish normal and abnormal SVD on CT images, where there are only coarse-grained labels available. Our framework was observed to work better than classic methods and clinical practice.Open Acces
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