Contourlet textual features: Improving the diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules in two dimensional ct images

Materials and Methods: A total of 6,299 CT images were acquired from 336 patients, with 1,454 benign pulmonary nodule images from 84 patients (50 male, 34 female) and 4,845 malignant from 252 patients (150 male, 102 female). Further to this, nineteen patient information categories, which included seven demographic parameters and twelve morphological features, were also collected. A contourlet was used to extract fourteen types of textural features. These were then used to establish three support vector machine models. One comprised a database constructed of nineteen collected patient information categories, another included contourlet textural features and the third one contained both sets of information. Ten-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate the diagnosis results for the three databases, with sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, the area under the curve (AUC), precision, Youden index, and F-measure were used as the assessment criteria. In addition, the synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) was used to preprocess the unbalanced data.Results: Using a database containing textural features and patient information, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, AUC, precision, Youden index, and F-measure were: 0.95, 0.71, 0.89, 0.89, 0.92, 0.66, and 0.93 respectively. These results were higher than results derived using the database without textural features (0.82, 0.47, 0.74, 0.67, 0.84, 0.29, and 0.83 respectively) as well as the database comprising only textural features (0.81, 0.64, 0.67, 0.72, 0.88, 0.44, and 0.85 respectively). Using the SMOTE as a pre-processing procedure, new balanced database generated, including observations of 5,816 benign ROIs and 5,815 malignant ROIs, and accuracy was 0.93.Objective: To determine the value of contourlet textural features obtained from solitary pulmonary nodules in two dimensional CT images used in diagnoses of lung cancer. Copyright:Conclusion: Our results indicate that the combined contourlet textural features of solitary pulmonary nodules in CT images with patient profile information could potentially improve the diagnosis of lung cancer

Primary multidrug-resistant TB in a 39-year-old man.

<p>Lung window of a transverse thin-section CT scan (1.25-mm-section thickness) showing multiple consolidations, small centrilobular nodules, tree-in-buds and bronchiectasis (arrow). A cavity in consolidation at the left lower lobe was also noted (curved arrow).</p

Comparison of the extent of pulmonary abnormalities in pMDR and DS TB ^a.

<p>Comparison of the extent of pulmonary abnormalities in pMDR and DS TB <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0176354#t003fn001" target="_blank">^a</a>.</p

Primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis versus drug-sensitive tuberculosis in non-HIV-infected patients: Comparisons of CT findings

<div><p>Background</p><p>Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis has emerged as a global threat. The aim of this work was to compare the CT findings of primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and drug-sensitive tuberculosis in non-AIDS adults.</p><p>Material and methods</p><p>From January 2012 to February 2016, 89 patients with primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis were retrospectively reviewed, and 89 consecutive drug sensitive TB patients with no history of anti-tuberculous chemotherapy from January 2014 to November 2014 were enrolled as control group. All patients were seronegative for HIV. The patients’ demographic data and the locations, frequency and patterns of lung lesions on chest CT were compared.</p><p>Results</p><p>Gender and frequency of diabetes were similar between the two groups. The mean age of primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients was younger than that of drug-sensitive tuberculosis (39.0 vs 47.5, P = 0.005). Lung cavitary nodules or masses were more frequently observed and also showed greater extent in primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis compared with drug-sensitive tuberculosis. The extent of bronchiectasis was significantly greater in primary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis than in drug-sensitive tuberculosis. Calcification, large nodules and calcified lymph nodes were more frequent in drug-sensitive tuberculosis.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>Characteristic chest CT findings may help differentiate between primary multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and drug-sensitive tuberculosis in patients without HIV infection.</p></div

Demographics of patients with primary MDR TB and DS TB^a.

<p>Demographics of patients with primary MDR TB and DS TB<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0176354#t001fn001" target="_blank">^a</a>.</p

Primary multidrug-resistant TB in a 29-year-old man.

<p>A lung window of a transverse thin-section CT scan (1.25-mm-section thickness) showing multiple cavities in both lungs.</p

Comparison of the CT Findings for primary MDR and DS TB ^a.

<p>Comparison of the CT Findings for primary MDR and DS TB <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0176354#t002fn001" target="_blank">^a</a>.</p

Distribution of twelve morphological features: benign and malignant cases.

<p>Distribution of twelve morphological features: benign and malignant cases.</p

Distribution of seven demographic parameters: benign and malignant cases.

<p>Distribution of seven demographic parameters: benign and malignant cases.</p