The difusion and perfusion magnetic resonance (MR) images can provide functional information about
tumour and enable more sensitive detection of the tumour extent. We aimed to develop a fuzzy feature
fusion method for auto-segmentation of gliomas in radiotherapy planning using multi-parametric
functional MR images including apparent difusion coefcient (ADC), fractional anisotropy (FA) and
relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV). For each functional modality, one histogram-based fuzzy model
was created to transform image volume into a fuzzy feature space. Based on the fuzzy fusion result
of the three fuzzy feature spaces, regions with high possibility belonging to tumour were generated
automatically. The auto-segmentations of tumour in structural MR images were added in fnal autosegmented gross tumour volume (GTV). For evaluation, one radiation oncologist delineated GTVs for
nine patients with all modalities. Comparisons between manually delineated and auto-segmented GTVs
showed that, the mean volume diference was 8.69% (±5.62%); the mean Dice’s similarity coefcient
(DSC) was 0.88 (±0.02); the mean sensitivity and specifcity of auto-segmentation was 0.87 (±0.04)
and 0.98 (±0.01) respectively. High accuracy and efciency can be achieved with the new method,
which shows potential of utilizing functional multi-parametric MR images for target defnition in
precision radiation treatment planning for patients with gliomas