Deep learning based automatic segmentation of metastasis hotspots in thorax bone SPECT images

PLoS One. 2020 Dec 3;15(12):e0243253. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243253. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

SPECT imaging has been identified as an effective medical modality for diagnosis, treatment, evaluation and prevention of a range of serious diseases and medical conditions. Bone SPECT scan has the potential to provide more accurate assessment of disease stage and severity. Segmenting hotspot in bone SPECT images plays a crucial role to calculate metrics like tumor uptake and metabolic tumor burden. Deep learning techniques especially the convolutional neural networks have been widely exploited for reliable segmentation of hotspots or lesions, organs and tissues in the traditional structural medical images (i.e., CT and MRI) due to their ability of automatically learning the features from images in an optimal way. In order to segment hotspots in bone SPECT images for automatic assessment of metastasis, in this work, we develop several deep learning based segmentation models. Specifically, each original whole-body bone SPECT image is processed to extract the thorax area, followed by image mirror, translation and rotation operations, which augments the original dataset. We then build segmentation models based on two commonly-used famous deep networks including U-Net and Mask R-CNN by fine-tuning their structures. Experimental evaluation conducted on a group of real-world bone SEPCT images reveals that the built segmentation models are workable on identifying and segmenting hotspots of metastasis in bone SEPCT images, achieving a value of 0.9920, 0.7721, 0.6788 and 0.6103 for PA (accuracy), CPA (precision), Rec (recall) and IoU, respectively. Finally, we conclude that the deep learning technology have the huge potential to identify and segment hotspots in bone SPECT images.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Deep Learning
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
  • Male
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Neoplasm Metastasis / diagnostic imaging*
  • Neoplasms / diagnostic imaging
  • Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography Computed Tomography / methods*
  • Thorax / diagnostic imaging
  • Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / methods
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed / methods

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61562075), the Gansu Provincial First-class Discipline Program of Northwest Minzu University (11080305), and the Program for Innovative Research Team of SEAC ([2018] 98).]