35 research outputs found
Uncertainty in multitask learning: joint representations for probabilistic MR-only radiotherapy planning
Multi-task neural network architectures provide a mechanism that jointly
integrates information from distinct sources. It is ideal in the context of
MR-only radiotherapy planning as it can jointly regress a synthetic CT (synCT)
scan and segment organs-at-risk (OAR) from MRI. We propose a probabilistic
multi-task network that estimates: 1) intrinsic uncertainty through a
heteroscedastic noise model for spatially-adaptive task loss weighting and 2)
parameter uncertainty through approximate Bayesian inference. This allows
sampling of multiple segmentations and synCTs that share their network
representation. We test our model on prostate cancer scans and show that it
produces more accurate and consistent synCTs with a better estimation in the
variance of the errors, state of the art results in OAR segmentation and a
methodology for quality assurance in radiotherapy treatment planning.Comment: Early-accept at MICCAI 2018, 8 pages, 4 figure
Brain MRI Tumor Segmentation with Adversarial Networks
Deep Learning is a promising approach to either automate or simplify several
tasks in the healthcare domain. In this work, we introduce SegAN-CAT, an
approach to brain tumor segmentation in Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI), based
on Adversarial Networks. In particular, we extend SegAN, successfully applied
to the same task in a previous work, in two respects: (i) we used a different
model input and (ii) we employed a modified loss function to train the model.
We tested our approach on two large datasets, made available by the Brain Tumor
Image Segmentation Benchmark (BraTS). First, we trained and tested some
segmentation models assuming the availability of all the major MRI contrast
modalities, i.e., T1-weighted, T1 weighted contrast-enhanced, T2-weighted, and
T2-FLAIR. However, as these four modalities are not always all available for
each patient, we also trained and tested four segmentation models that take as
input MRIs acquired only with a single contrast modality. Finally, we proposed
to apply transfer learning across different contrast modalities to improve the
performance of these single-modality models. Our results are promising and show
that not SegAN-CAT is able to outperform SegAN when all the four modalities are
available, but also that transfer learning can actually lead to better
performances when only a single modality is available
A 3D Coarse-to-Fine Framework for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation
In this paper, we adopt 3D Convolutional Neural Networks to segment
volumetric medical images. Although deep neural networks have been proven to be
very effective on many 2D vision tasks, it is still challenging to apply them
to 3D tasks due to the limited amount of annotated 3D data and limited
computational resources. We propose a novel 3D-based coarse-to-fine framework
to effectively and efficiently tackle these challenges. The proposed 3D-based
framework outperforms the 2D counterpart to a large margin since it can
leverage the rich spatial infor- mation along all three axes. We conduct
experiments on two datasets which include healthy and pathological pancreases
respectively, and achieve the current state-of-the-art in terms of
Dice-S{\o}rensen Coefficient (DSC). On the NIH pancreas segmentation dataset,
we outperform the previous best by an average of over 2%, and the worst case is
improved by 7% to reach almost 70%, which indicates the reliability of our
framework in clinical applications.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Accepted to 3D
Influence of head positioning during cone-beam CT imaging on the accuracy of virtual 3D models
Objective: Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) images are being increasingly used to acquire three- dimensional (3D) models of the skull for additive manufacturing purposes. However, the accuracy of such models remains a challenge, especially in the orbital area. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of four different CBCT imaging positions on the accuracy of the resulting 3D models in the orbital area. Methods: An anthropomorphic head phantom was manufactured by submerging a dry human skull in silicon to mimic the soft tissue attenuation and scattering properties of the human head. The phantom was scanned on a ProMax 3D MAX CBCT scanner using 90 and 120 kV for four different field of view positions: standard; elevated; backwards tilted; and forward tilted. All CBCT images were subsequently converted into 3D models and geometrically compared with a "gold- standard" optical scan of the dry skull. Results: Mean absolute deviations of the 3D models ranged between 0.15 +/- 0.11 mm and 0.56 +/- 0.28 mm. The elevated imaging position in combination with 120 kV tube voltage resulted in an improved representation of the orbital walls in the resulting 3D model without compromising the accuracy. Conclusions: Head positioning during CBCT imaging can influence the accuracy of the resulting 3D model. The accuracy of such models may be improved by positioning the region of interest (e.g. the orbital area) in the focal plane (Figure 2a) of the CBCT X- ray beam.Peer reviewe
Coronary Artery Centerline Extraction in Cardiac CT Angiography Using a CNN-Based Orientation Classifier
Coronary artery centerline extraction in cardiac CT angiography (CCTA) images
is a prerequisite for evaluation of stenoses and atherosclerotic plaque. We
propose an algorithm that extracts coronary artery centerlines in CCTA using a
convolutional neural network (CNN).
A 3D dilated CNN is trained to predict the most likely direction and radius
of an artery at any given point in a CCTA image based on a local image patch.
Starting from a single seed point placed manually or automatically anywhere in
a coronary artery, a tracker follows the vessel centerline in two directions
using the predictions of the CNN. Tracking is terminated when no direction can
be identified with high certainty.
The CNN was trained using 32 manually annotated centerlines in a training set
consisting of 8 CCTA images provided in the MICCAI 2008 Coronary Artery
Tracking Challenge (CAT08). Evaluation using 24 test images of the CAT08
challenge showed that extracted centerlines had an average overlap of 93.7%
with 96 manually annotated reference centerlines. Extracted centerline points
were highly accurate, with an average distance of 0.21 mm to reference
centerline points. In a second test set consisting of 50 CCTA scans, 5,448
markers in the coronary arteries were used as seed points to extract single
centerlines. This showed strong correspondence between extracted centerlines
and manually placed markers. In a third test set containing 36 CCTA scans,
fully automatic seeding and centerline extraction led to extraction of on
average 92% of clinically relevant coronary artery segments.
The proposed method is able to accurately and efficiently determine the
direction and radius of coronary arteries. The method can be trained with
limited training data, and once trained allows fast automatic or interactive
extraction of coronary artery trees from CCTA images.Comment: Accepted in Medical Image Analysi