Segmentation of Cysts in Kidney and 3-D Volume Calculation from CT Images

Abstract

This paper proposes a segmentation method and a three-dimensional (3-D) volume calculation method of cysts in kidney from a number of computer tomography (CT) slice images. The input CT slice images contain both sides of kidneys. There are two segmentation steps used in the proposed method: kidney segmentation and cyst segmentation. For kidney segmentation, kidney regions are segmented from CT slice images by using a graph-cut method that is applied to the middle slice of input CT slice images. Then, the same method is used for the remaining CT slice images. In cyst segmentation, cyst regions are segmented from the kidney regions by using fuzzy C-means clustering and level-set methods that can reduce noise of non-cyst regions. For 3-D volume calculation, cyst volume calculation and 3-D volume visualization are used. In cyst volume calculation, the area of cyst in each CT slice image equals to the number of pixels in the cyst regions multiplied by spatial density of CT slice images, and then the volume of cysts is calculated by multiplying the cyst area and thickness (interval) of CT slice images. In 3-D volume visualization, a 3-D visualization technique is used to show the distribution of cysts in kidneys by using the result of cyst volume calculation. The total 3-D volume is the sum of the calculated cyst volume in each CT slice image. Experimental results show a good performance of 3-D volume calculation. The proposed cyst segmentation and 3-D volume calculation methods can provide practical supports to surgery options and medical practice to medical students.