9,239 research outputs found
Lesion boundary segmentation using level set methods
This paper addresses the issue of accurate lesion segmentation in retinal imagery, using level set methods and
a novel stopping mechanism - an elementary features scheme. Specifically, the curve propagation is guided by a gradient map built using a combination of histogram equalization and robust statistics. The stopping mechanism uses elementary features gathered as the curve deforms over time, and then using a lesionness measure, defined herein, ’looks back in time’ to find the point at which the curve best fits the real object. We implement the level set using a fast upwind scheme and compare the proposed method against five other
segmentation algorithms performed on 50 randomly selected images of exudates with a database of clinician
marked-up boundaries as ground truth
A robust lesion boundary segmentation algorithm using level set methods
This paper addresses the issue of accurate lesion segmentation in retinal imagery, using level set methods and
a novel stopping mechanism - an elementary features scheme. Specifically, the curve propagation is guided
by a gradient map built using a combination of histogram equalization and robust statistics. The stopping
mechanism uses elementary features gathered as the curve deforms over time, and then using a lesionness
measure, defined herein, ’looks back in time’ to find the point at which the curve best fits the real object.
We compare the proposed method against five other
segmentation algorithms performed on 50 randomly selected images of exudates with a database of clinician
demarcated boundaries as ground truth
Using shape entropy as a feature to lesion boundary segmentation with level sets
Accurate lesion segmentation in retinal imagery is an area of vast research. Of the many segmentation methods
available very few are insensitive to topological changes on noisy surfaces. This paper presents an extension to
earlier work on a novel stopping mechanism for level sets. The elementary features scheme (ELS) in [5] is
extended to include shape entropy as a feature used to ’look back in time’ and find the point at which the curve
best fits the real object. We compare the proposed extension against the original algorithm for timing and
accuracy using 50 randomly selected images of exudates with a database of clinician demarcated boundaries as
ground truth. While this work is presented applied to medical imagery, it can be used for any application
involving the segmentation of bright or dark blobs on noisy images
Relating multi-sequence longitudinal intensity profiles and clinical covariates in new multiple sclerosis lesions
Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to detect lesions in
the brains of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. The formation of these lesions
is a complex process involving inflammation, tissue damage, and tissue repair,
all of which are visible on MRI. Here we characterize the lesion formation
process on longitudinal, multi-sequence structural MRI from 34 MS patients and
relate the longitudinal changes we observe within lesions to therapeutic
interventions. In this article, we first outline a pipeline to extract voxel
level, multi-sequence longitudinal profiles from four MRI sequences within
lesion tissue. We then propose two models to relate clinical covariates to the
longitudinal profiles. The first model is a principal component analysis (PCA)
regression model, which collapses the information from all four profiles into a
scalar value. We find that the score on the first PC identifies areas of slow,
long-term intensity changes within the lesion at a voxel level, as validated by
two experienced clinicians, a neuroradiologist and a neurologist. On a quality
scale of 1 to 4 (4 being the highest) the neuroradiologist gave the score on
the first PC a median rating of 4 (95% CI: [4,4]), and the neurologist gave it
a median rating of 3 (95% CI: [3,3]). In the PCA regression model, we find that
treatment with disease modifying therapies (p-value < 0.01), steroids (p-value
< 0.01), and being closer to the boundary of abnormal signal intensity (p-value
< 0.01) are associated with a return of a voxel to intensity values closer to
that of normal-appearing tissue. The second model is a function-on-scalar
regression, which allows for assessment of the individual time points at which
the covariates are associated with the profiles. In the function-on-scalar
regression both age and distance to the boundary were found to have a
statistically significant association with the profiles
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