Segmentation of distal airways using structural analysis

PLoS One. 2019 Dec 19;14(12):e0226006. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226006. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Segmentation of airways in Computed Tomography (CT) scans is a must for accurate support of diagnosis and intervention of many pulmonary disorders. In particular, lung cancer diagnosis would benefit from segmentations reaching most distal airways. We present a method that combines descriptors of bronchi local appearance and graph global structural analysis to fine-tune thresholds on the descriptors adapted for each bronchial level. We have compared our method to the top performers of the EXACT09 challenge and to a commercial software for biopsy planning evaluated in an own-collected data-base of high resolution CT scans acquired under different breathing conditions. Results on EXACT09 data show that our method provides a high leakage reduction with minimum loss in airway detection. Results on our data-base show the reliability across varying breathing conditions and a competitive performance for biopsy planning compared to a commercial solution.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Bronchi / diagnostic imaging*
  • Bronchi / pathology
  • Humans
  • Lung Diseases / diagnostic imaging*
  • Lung Diseases / pathology
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed*
  • User-Computer Interface

Grants and funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkAodowska-Curie grant agreement No 712949 (TECNIOspring PLUS) and from the Agency for Business Competitiveness of the Government of Catalonia. This work was supported by Spanish projects RTI2018-095209-B-C21, FIS-G64384969, Generalitat de Catalunya, 2017-SGR-1624 and CERCA-Programme. Debora Gil is supported by Serra Hunter Fellow. The Titan X Pascal used for this research was donated by the NVIDIA Corporation.