Deficiencies of Lung Segmentation Techniques using CT Scan Images for CAD

Segmentation is an important step in medical image analysis and classification for radiological evaluation or computer aided diagnosis. This paper presents the problem of inaccurate lung segmentation as observed in algorithms presented by researchers working in the area of medical image analysis. The different lung segmentation techniques have been tested using the dataset of 19 patients consisting of a total of 917 images. We obtained datasets of 11 patients from Ackron University, USA and of 8 patients from AGA Khan Medical University, Pakistan. After testing the algorithms against datasets, the deficiencies of each algorithm have been highlighted.

Authors:

• Nisar Ahmed Memon
• Anwar Majid Mirza
• S.A.M. Gilani

Keywords:

• Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD)
• MathematicalMorphology
• Medical Image Analysis
• Region Growing
• Segmentation
• Thresholding

References:

[1] Hoffman, E. A, and McLennan, G., "Assessment of the pulmonary
structure-function relationship and clinical outcomes measures:
Quantitative volumetric CT of the lung", Academic Radiology, vol. 4,
no. 11, pp. 758-776, 1997.
[2] Hedlund, L.W., Anderson, R.F., Goulding, P.L., Beck, J. W., Effmann,
E.L.and Putman, C.E, "Two methods for isolating the lung area of a CT
scan for density information", Radiology, vol. 144, pp. 353-357, 1982.
[3] Uppaluri, R., Mitsa, T., Sonka, M., Hoffman, E. A., and Mclemman, G.,
"Quatification of pulmonary emphysema from lung CT images using
texture analysis", Amer. J. Resp. Crit. Care Med. vol. 156, no. 1 pp.
248-254, 1997.
[4] Julian Kerr, "The TRACE method for Segmentation of Lungs from
Chest CT images by Deterministic Edge Linking", University of New
South Wales, Department of Artificial Intelligence, Australia, May
2000.
[5] Shiying Hu, Eric A.Huffman, and Joseph M. Reinhardt, "Automatic
Lung Segementation for Accurate Quantitiation of Volumetric X-Ray
CT images", IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, vol. 20, No. 6,
June 2001.
[6] Manzoor Ahmed Khawaja, Muhammed Zaheer Aziz, Nadeem Iqbal,
"Effectual Lung Segmentation for CAD System Using CT Scan
Images",IEEE Transactions, INMIC, National Univeristy of Emerging
Sciences, FAST Lahore, Pakistan, 2004.
[7] Riccardo Boscolo, Mathew S. Brown, Michael F. McNitt-Gray,
"Medical Image Segmentation with Knowledge-guided Robust Active
Contours", Radiographics, vol. 22, pp. 437-448, 2002.
[8] Binsheng Zhao, Gordon Gamsu, Michelle S. Ginsberg, "Automatic
detection of small lung nodules on CT utilizing a local density
maximum algorithm", Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, vol.
4, No. 3, summer 2003.
[9] Samuel G. Armato III, Maryellen L. Giger and Catherine J. Moran,
"Computerized Detection of Pulmonary Nodules on CT Scans",
RadioGraphics, vol. 19, pp. 1303-1311, 1999.
[10] Ayman El-Baz, Aly A. Farag, Robert Falk, Renato La Rocca,
"Detection, Visualization and identification of Lung Abnormalities in
Chest Spiral CT Scan: Phase-I", International Conference on
Biomedical Engineering, Cairo, Egypt, 12-01-2002.
[11] Ayman El-Baz, Aly A. Farag, Robert Falk, Renato La Rocca, "A
Unified Approach for Detection, Visualization and Identification of
Lung Abnormalities in Chest Spiral CT Scan", Proceedings of
Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, London 2003.