Automated measurement of pulmonary artery in low-dose non-contrast chest CT images

Yiting Xie, Mingzhu Liang, David F. Yankelevitz, Claudia I. Henschke, Anthony P. Reeves

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

A new measurement of the pulmonary artery diameter is obtained where the artery may be robustly segmented between the heart and the artery bifurcation. An automated algorithm is presented that can make this pulmonary artery measurement in low-dose non-contrast chest CT images. The algorithm uses a cylinder matching method following geometric constraints obtained from other adjacent organs that have been previously segmented. This new measurement and the related ratio of pulmonary artery to aortic artery measurement are compared to traditional manual approaches for pulmonary artery characterization. The algorithm was qualitatively evaluated on 124 low-dose and 223 standard-dose non-contrast chest CT scans from two public datasets; 324 out of the 347 cases had good segmentations and in the other 23 cases there was significant boundary inaccuracy. For quantitative evaluation, the comparison was to manually marked pulmonary artery boundary in an axial slice in 45 cases; the resulting average Dice Similarity Coefficient was 0.88 (max 0.95, min 0.74). For the 45 cases with manual markings, the correlation between the automated pulmonary artery to ascending aorta diameter ratio and manual ratio at pulmonary artery bifurcation level was 0.81. Using Bland-Altman analysis, the mean difference of the two ratios was 0.03 and the limits of agreement was (-0.12, 0.18). This automated measurement may have utility as an alternative to the conventional manual measurement of pulmonary artery diameter at the bifurcation level especially in the context of noisy low-dose CT images.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMedical Imaging 2015
Subtitle of host publicationComputer-Aided Diagnosis
EditorsLubomir M. Hadjiiski, Georgia D. Tourassi
PublisherSPIE
ISBN (Electronic)9781628415049
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
EventSPIE Medical Imaging Symposium 2015: Computer-Aided Diagnosis - Orlando, United States
Duration: 22 Feb 201525 Feb 2015

Publication series

NameProgress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE
Volume9414
ISSN (Print)1605-7422

Conference

ConferenceSPIE Medical Imaging Symposium 2015: Computer-Aided Diagnosis
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando
Period22/02/1525/02/15

Keywords

  • Ascending aorta measurement
  • Computer-based segmentation
  • Low-dose CT
  • Pulmonary artery
  • Pulmonary artery trunk measurement

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