Multi-scale analysis of lung computed tomography images

A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of lung internal nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images was developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 project. The three modules of our lung CAD system, a segmentation algorithm for lung internal region identification, a multi-scale dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a multi-scale neural technique for false positive finding reduction, are described. The results obtained on a dataset of low-dose and thin-slice CT scans are shown in terms of free response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves and discussed.Comment: 18 pages, 12 low-resolution figure

An automated system for lung nodule detection in low-dose computed tomography

A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of pulmonary nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images was developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 Italian project. One of the main goals of this project is to build a distributed database of lung CT scans in order to enable automated image analysis through a data and cpu GRID infrastructure. The basic modules of our lung-CAD system, a dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a neural classifier for false-positive finding reduction, are described. The system was designed and tested for both internal and sub-pleural nodules. The results obtained on the collected database of low-dose thin-slice CT scans are shown in terms of free response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves and discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures; Proceedings of the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference, 17-22 February 2007, San Diego, California, USA, Vol. 6514, 65143

Automatic Pulmonary Nodule Detection in CT Scans Using Convolutional Neural Networks Based on Maximum Intensity Projection

Accurate pulmonary nodule detection is a crucial step in lung cancer screening. Computer-aided detection (CAD) systems are not routinely used by radiologists for pulmonary nodule detection in clinical practice despite their potential benefits. Maximum intensity projection (MIP) images improve the detection of pulmonary nodules in radiological evaluation with computed tomography (CT) scans. Inspired by the clinical methodology of radiologists, we aim to explore the feasibility of applying MIP images to improve the effectiveness of automatic lung nodule detection using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). We propose a CNN-based approach that takes MIP images of different slab thicknesses (5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm) and 1 mm axial section slices as input. Such an approach augments the two-dimensional (2-D) CT slice images with more representative spatial information that helps discriminate nodules from vessels through their morphologies. Our proposed method achieves sensitivity of 92.67% with 1 false positive per scan and sensitivity of 94.19% with 2 false positives per scan for lung nodule detection on 888 scans in the LIDC-IDRI dataset. The use of thick MIP images helps the detection of small pulmonary nodules (3 mm-10 mm) and results in fewer false positives. Experimental results show that utilizing MIP images can increase the sensitivity and lower the number of false positives, which demonstrates the effectiveness and significance of the proposed MIP-based CNNs framework for automatic pulmonary nodule detection in CT scans. The proposed method also shows the potential that CNNs could gain benefits for nodule detection by combining the clinical procedure.Comment: Submitted to IEEE TM

Potential of Computer-Aided Diagnosis to Improve CT Lung Cancer Screening

The development of low-dose spiral computed tomography (CT) has rekindled hope that effective lung cancer screening might yet be found. Screening is justified when there is evidence that it will extend lives at reasonable cost and acceptable levels of risk. A screening test should detect all extant cancers while avoiding unnecessary workups. Thus optimal screening modalities have both high sensitivity and specificity. Due to the present state of technology, radiologists must opt to increase sensitivity and rely on follow-up diagnostic procedures to rule out the incurred false positives. There is evidence in published reports that computer-aided diagnosis technology may help radiologists alter the benefit-cost calculus of CT sensitivity and specificity in lung cancer screening protocols. This review will provide insight into the current discussion of the effectiveness of lung cancer screening and assesses the potential of state-of-the-art computer-aided design developments

Computational methods for the analysis of functional 4D-CT chest images.

Medical imaging is an important emerging technology that has been intensively used in the last few decades for disease diagnosis and monitoring as well as for the assessment of treatment effectiveness. Medical images provide a very large amount of valuable information that is too huge to be exploited by radiologists and physicians. Therefore, the design of computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) system, which can be used as an assistive tool for the medical community, is of a great importance. This dissertation deals with the development of a complete CAD system for lung cancer patients, which remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in the USA. In 2014, there were approximately 224,210 new cases of lung cancer and 159,260 related deaths. The process begins with the detection of lung cancer which is detected through the diagnosis of lung nodules (a manifestation of lung cancer). These nodules are approximately spherical regions of primarily high density tissue that are visible in computed tomography (CT) images of the lung. The treatment of these lung cancer nodules is complex, nearly 70% of lung cancer patients require radiation therapy as part of their treatment. Radiation-induced lung injury is a limiting toxicity that may decrease cure rates and increase morbidity and mortality treatment. By finding ways to accurately detect, at early stage, and hence prevent lung injury, it will have significant positive consequences for lung cancer patients. The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to develop a clinically usable CAD system that can improve the sensitivity and specificity of early detection of radiation-induced lung injury based on the hypotheses that radiated lung tissues may get affected and suffer decrease of their functionality as a side effect of radiation therapy treatment. These hypotheses have been validated by demonstrating that automatic segmentation of the lung regions and registration of consecutive respiratory phases to estimate their elasticity, ventilation, and texture features to provide discriminatory descriptors that can be used for early detection of radiation-induced lung injury. The proposed methodologies will lead to novel indexes for distinguishing normal/healthy and injured lung tissues in clinical decision-making. To achieve this goal, a CAD system for accurate detection of radiation-induced lung injury that requires three basic components has been developed. These components are the lung fields segmentation, lung registration, and features extraction and tissue classification. This dissertation starts with an exploration of the available medical imaging modalities to present the importance of medical imaging in today’s clinical applications. Secondly, the methodologies, challenges, and limitations of recent CAD systems for lung cancer detection are covered. This is followed by introducing an accurate segmentation methodology of the lung parenchyma with the focus of pathological lungs to extract the volume of interest (VOI) to be analyzed for potential existence of lung injuries stemmed from the radiation therapy. After the segmentation of the VOI, a lung registration framework is introduced to perform a crucial and important step that ensures the co-alignment of the intra-patient scans. This step eliminates the effects of orientation differences, motion, breathing, heart beats, and differences in scanning parameters to be able to accurately extract the functionality features for the lung fields. The developed registration framework also helps in the evaluation and gated control of the radiotherapy through the motion estimation analysis before and after the therapy dose. Finally, the radiation-induced lung injury is introduced, which combines the previous two medical image processing and analysis steps with the features estimation and classification step. This framework estimates and combines both texture and functional features. The texture features are modeled using the novel 7th-order Markov Gibbs random field (MGRF) model that has the ability to accurately models the texture of healthy and injured lung tissues through simultaneously accounting for both vertical and horizontal relative dependencies between voxel-wise signals. While the functionality features calculations are based on the calculated deformation fields, obtained from the 4D-CT lung registration, that maps lung voxels between successive CT scans in the respiratory cycle. These functionality features describe the ventilation, the air flow rate, of the lung tissues using the Jacobian of the deformation field and the tissues’ elasticity using the strain components calculated from the gradient of the deformation field. Finally, these features are combined in the classification model to detect the injured parts of the lung at an early stage and enables an earlier intervention

Computer-aided detection of pulmonary nodules in low-dose CT

A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of pulmonary nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical CT images with 1.25 mm slice thickness is being developed in the framework of the INFN-supported MAGIC-5 Italian project. The basic modules of our lung-CAD system, a dot enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a voxel-based neural classifier for false-positive finding reduction, are described. Preliminary results obtained on the so-far collected database of lung CT scans are discussed.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures; Proceedings of the CompIMAGE - International Symposium on Computational Modelling of Objects Represented in Images: Fundamentals, Methods and Applications, 20-21 Oct. 2006, Coimbra, Portuga