Automatic Detection and Segmentation of Kidneys in Magnetic Resonance Images Using Image Processing Techniques

Abstract

Kidney Detection and Segmentation in MR images allows extracting meaningful information for nephrologists, also for practical use in clinical routine, thus we should apply an fast, automatic and robust algorithm. We demonstrate the possibility of construct an algorithm that achieve these requirements. Therefore, a novel kidney segmentation algorithm was created depending on multiple stages. The Region of Interest (ROI) is extracted after we convert the input image to binary one via specific thresholding level yields from K Mean Clustering algorithm. The resulted binary image contain both of kidneys as the biggest regions, so we can isolate them after we calculate the objects areas in labeled image. Finally we can use some morphological operation to remove small objects surrounding the kidney region. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated through experimental results on complex MR slices. Kidneys were accurately detected and segmented in a few seconds.