COMPUTERIZED DETECTION OF PULMONARY NODULES IN COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY IMAGES
COMPUTERIZED DETECTION OF PULMONARY NODULES IN COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY IMAGES
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DOI：
10.1097/00004424-199404000-00013
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发表时间：
1994-04-01
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
MACMAHON, H
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
GIGER, ML;BAE, KT;MACMAHON, H
原理和说明。肺部计算机断层扫描（CT）的解释是一项耗时的任务，涉及一个切片中可能的结节与相邻切片中的结节的视觉相关性，以区分实际结节与血管。因此，作者正在开发自动化的方法来检测胸部CT图像上的结节。计算机化技术使用各种计算机视觉技术和肺结节形态特征的先验信息。在每个部分中，检测外部胸壁和肺边界，并且对肺边界内的特征进行灰度阈值化操作。通过分析在不同阈值水平下出现的特征之间关于其形状、大小和位置的关系，每个特征被分配为结节或血管的可能性。比较相邻部分中的特征以解决不明确的特征。检测到的结节候选者在肺内以三维显示。该系统对结节检测的灵敏度为94%，平均每个病例的假阳性结果为1.25。继续开发一种自动化方法，用于检测肺结节的CT扫描，预计将有助于放射科医生在三维定位结节的任务。
RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES. Interpretation of computed tomographic (CT) scans of the lungs is a time consuming task that involves visual correlation of possible nodules in one section with those in contiguous sections to distinguish actual nodules from blood vessels. Thus, the authors are developing automated methods to detect nodules on CT images of the thorax.METHODS. The computerized technique uses various computer-vision techniques and a priori information of the morphologic characteristics of pulmonary nodules. In each section, the external thoracic walt and lung boundaries are detected, and the features within the lung boundaries are subjected to gray-level thresholding operations. By analyzing the relationships between features arising at different threshold levels with respect to their shape, size, and location, each feature is assigned a likelihood of being a nodule or a vessel. Features in adjacent sections are compared to resolve ambiguous features. Detected nodule candidates are displayed in three dimensions within the lung.RESULTS. The system provided a sensitivity of 94% for nodule detection and an average of 1.25 false-positive results per case.CONCLUSIONS. Continued development of an automated method for detecting pulmonary nodules in CT scans is expected to aid radiologists in the task of locating nodules in three dimensions.