A comprehensive lung CT landmark pair dataset for evaluating deformable image registration algorithms

Abstract

Purpose: Deformable image registration (DIR) is a key enabling technology in many diagnostic and therapeutic tasks, but often does not meet the required robustness and accuracy for supporting clinical tasks. This is in large part due to a lack of high-quality benchmark datasets by which new DIR algorithms can be evaluated. Our team was supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to develop DIR benchmark dataset libraries for multiple anatomical sites, comprising of large numbers of highly accurate landmark pairs on matching blood vessel bifurcations. Here we introduce our lung CT DIR benchmark dataset library, which was developed to improve upon the number and distribution of landmark pairs in current public lung CT benchmark datasets.

Acquisition and validation methods: Thirty CT image pairs were acquired from several publicly available repositories as well as authors' institution with IRB approval. The data processing workflow included multiple steps: (1) The images were denoised. (2) Lungs, airways, and blood vessels were automatically segmented. (3) Bifurcations were directly detected on the skeleton of the segmented vessel tree. (4) Falsely identified bifurcations were filtered out using manually defined rules. (5) A DIR was used to project landmarks detected on the first image onto the second image of the image pair to form landmark pairs. (6) Landmark pairs were manually verified. This workflow resulted in an average of 1262 landmark pairs per image pair. Estimates of the landmark pair target registration error (TRE) using digital phantoms were 0.4 mm ± 0.3 mm.

Data format and usage notes: The data is published in Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8200423. Instructions for use can be found at https://github.com/deshanyang/Lung-DIR-QA.

Potential applications: The dataset library generated in this work is the largest of its kind to date and will provide researchers with a new and improved set of ground truth benchmarks for quantitatively validating DIR algorithms within the lung.

Keywords: deformable image registration; ground truth dataset; lung motion.