Magnetic Resonance Imaging Image Segmentation Research Articles

Gaussian Mixture Model for MRI Image Segmentation to Build a Three-Dimensional Image on Brain Tumor Area

A brain tumor is one of the deadly diseases that attack the central and nervoussystem. The treatment of brain tumor, need high accuracy and precision. Brain tumordetection through Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has two-dimensional output withthree perspectives, namely sagittal, coronal, and axial. These different perspectives needto be seen one by one to determine the location and size of the tumor. Tosolve the problem, this study constructs the three-dimensional visualization perspective ofMRI images. The tumor area in MRI image is segmented as a region of interest (ROI) byemploying the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) with Expectation-Maximization as theoptimization technique. These couple segmentation methods have revealed significant gainas a clear boundary of the tumor area to separate from the healthy part of the brain andan estimated tumor volume from sagittal, coronal, and axial perspectives. Furthermore,these findings have been successfully visualized in 3D construction of the tumor positionon the left side of the patient’s head with an estimated volume of 749mm3.

Image Based Group Classifier for Brain Tumor Detection Using Machine Learning Technique

In view of insights of the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS), brain tumor is one of the main sources of disease related deaths in the World. It is the subsequent reason for tumor related deaths in adults under the age 20-39. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is assuming a significant job in the examination of neuroscience for contemplating brain images. The investigation of brain MRI Images is useful in brain tumor analysis process. Features will be extricated and selected from the segmented pictures and afterward grouped by utilizing the classification procedures to analyze whether the patient is ordinary (having no tumor) or irregular (having tumor). One of the most dangerous cancers is brain tumor or cancer which affects the human body's main nervous system. Infection that can affect is very sensitive to the brain. Two types of brain tumors are present. The tumor may be categorized as benign and malignant. The benign tumor represents a change in the shape and structure of the cells, but cannot contaminate or spread to other cells in the brain. The malignant tumor can spread and grow if not carefully treated and removed. The detection of brain tumors is a difficult and sensitive task involving the classifier's experience. In the proposed work a Group based Classifier for Brain Tumor Recognition (GbCBTD) is introduced for the efficient segmentation of MRI images and for identification of tumor. The use of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) system to classify the brain tumor type is presented in this work. Relevant features are extracted from images and by using CNN with machine learning technique, tumor can be recognized. CNN can reduce the cost and increase the performance of brain tumor detection. The proposed work is compared to the traditional methods and the results show that the proposed method is effective in detecting tumors.

Brain Tumor Segmentation of T1w MRI Images Based on Clustering Using Dimensionality Reduction Random Projection Technique.

Early diagnosis of a brain tumor may increase life expectancy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) accompanied by several segmentation algorithms is preferred as a reliable method for assessment. The availability of high-dimensional medical image data during diagnosis places a heavy computational burden and a suitable pre-processing step is required for lower- dimensional representation. The storage requirement and complexity of image data are also a concern. To address this concern, the random projection technique (RPT) is widely used as a multivariate approach for data reduction. This study mainly focuses on T1-weighted MRI image clustering for brain tumor segmentation with dimension reduction by using the conventional principal component analysis (PCA) and RPT. Two clustering algorithms, K-means and fuzzy c-means (FCM) were used for brain tumor detection. The primary study objective was to present a comparison of the two clustering methods between MRI images subjected to PCA and RPT. In addition to the original dimension of 512 × 512, three other image sizes, 256 × 256, 128 × 128, and 64 × 64, were used to determine the effect of the methods. In terms of average reconstruction, Euclidean distance, and segmentation distance errors, the RPT produced better results than the PCA method for all the clustered images from clustering techniques. According to the values of performance metrics, RPT supported fuzzy c-means in achieving the best clustering performance and provided significant results for each new size of the MRI images.

Application of convolutional neural network to risk evaluation of positive circumferential resection margin of rectal cancer by magnetic resonance imaging

Objective: To explore the feasibility of using faster regional convolutional neural network (Faster R-CNN) to evaluate the status of circumferential resection margin (CRM) of rectal cancer in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: This study was registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR-1800017410). Case inclusion criteria: (1) the positive area of CRM was located between the plane of the levator ani, anal canal and peritoneal reflection; (2) rectal malignancy was confirmed by electronic colonoscopy and histopathological examination; (3) positive CRM was confirmed by postoperative pathology or preoperative high-resolution MRI. Exclusion criteria: patients after neoadjuvant therapy, recurrent cancer after surgery, poor quality images, giant tumor with extensive necrosis and tissue degeneration, and rectal tissue construction changes in previous pelvic surgery. According to the above criteria, MRI plain scan images of 350 patients with rectal cancer and positive CRM in The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University from July 2016 to June 2019 were collected. The patients were classified by gender and tumor position, and randomly assigned to the training group (300 cases) and the validation group (50 cases) at a ratio of 6:1 by computer random number method. The CRM positive region was identified on the T2WI image using the LabelImg software. The identified training group images were used to iteratively train and optimize parameters of the Faster R-CNN model until the network converged to obtain the best deep learning model. The test set data were used to evaluate the recognition performance of the artificial intelligence platform. The selected indicators included accuracy, sensitivity, positive predictive value, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, areas under the ROC curves (AUC), and the time taken to identify a single image. Results: The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the CRM status determined by the trained Faster R-CNN artificial intelligence approach were 0.884, 0.857, 0.898, 0.807, and 0.926, respectively; the AUC was 0.934 (95% CI: 91.3% to 95.4%). The Faster R-CNN model's automatic recognition time for a single image was 0.2 s. Conclusion: The artificial intelligence model based on Faster R-CNN for the identification and segmentation of CRM-positive MRI images of rectal cancer is established, which can complete the risk assessment of CRM-positive areas caused by in-situ tumor invasion and has the application value of preliminary screening.

Detection and Identification of Tumor Region from MRI Brain Image using Image Segmentation

Brain tumor detection and segmentation is one in every of the foremost difficult and time overwhelming task in medical image process. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be a medical technique, in the main utilized by the radiotherapist for visualization of internal structure of the body with none surgery. Magnetic resonance imaging provides plentiful info regarding the human soft tissue that helps within the designation of neoplasm (brain tumor). Correct segmentation of MRI image is very important for the designation of brain tumor by laptop motor-assisted clinical tool. When acceptable segmentation of brain man pictures, growth is assessed to malignant and benign, that may be a troublesome task because of complexness and variation in growth tissue characteristics like its form, size, grey level intensities and site. Taking in to account the said challenges, this analysis is concentrated towards highlight the strength and limitations of earlier projected classification techniques mentioned within the up to date literature. Besides summarizing the literature, the paper additionally provides an important analysis of the surveyed literature that reveals new sides of analysis.

Advance computer analysis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for early brain tumor detection

Purpose The brain tumor grows inside the skull and interposes with regular brain functioning. The tumor growth may possibly result in cancer at a later stage. The early detection of brain tumor is crucial for successful treatment of fatal disease. The tumor presence is normally detected by Computed Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images. The MRI/CT images are highly complex and involve huge data. This requires highly tedious and time-consuming process for detection of small tumors for the neurologists. Thus, there is a need to develop an effective and less time-consuming imaging technique for early detection of brain tumors. Materials and Methods This paper mainly focuses on early detecting and localizing the brain tumor region using segmentation of patient's MRI images. The Matlab software experiments are performed on a set of fifteen tumorous MRI images. In the proposed work, four image segmentation modalities namely watershed transform, k-means clustering, thresholding and Fuzzy C Means Clustering techniques with median filtering have been implemented. Results The results are verified by quantitative comparison of results in terms of image quality evaluation parameters-Entropy, standard deviation and Naturalness Image Quality Evaluator. A remarkable rise in the entropy and standard deviation values has been noticed. Conclusions The watershed transform segmentation with median filtering yields the best quality brain tumor images. The noteworthy improvement in visibility of the MRI images may highly increase the possibilities of early detection and successful treatment of brain tumor disease and thereby assists the clinicians to decide the precise therapies.

Improving brain tumor segmentation on MRI based on the deep U-net and residual units.

BACKGROUNDAccurate segmentation of brain tumor depicting on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an important step for doctors to determine optimal treatment plan of Gliomas, which are the common malignant brain tumors that seriously damage patients' health and life.OBJECTThis study aims to improve accuracy and efficiency of brain tumor segmentation on MRI using the advanced deep learning model.METHODIn this study, an improved model based on the U-net for accurate segmentation of brain tumor MRI images, called Deeper ResU-net, is proposed. First, a deep Deeper U-net is built, which has deeper network depth compared with U-net, uses Squeeze Operator to control network parameters and attempts to enhance the feature extraction ability. Then, Deeper ResU-net is formed to eliminate degradation phenomenon of the deep network, in which residual unit is designed and integrated into the Deeper U-net to keep the number of parameters unchanged.RESULTDeeper ResU-net makes the deep network conduct stable training without degrading. Evaluation result shows that the Deeper ResU-net has achieved competitive result with average DSC metrics of 0.9, 0.82, 0.88 for Complete tumor region, Core tumor region and Enhanced tumor region, respectively.CONCLUSIONBy extending the U-net model to a deeper layer and adding the residual structure to ensure effective and stable training of the model, the experiment results demonstrate that applying the improved Deeper ResU-net can effectively eliminate the degradation phenomenon of deep network and improve segmentation performance.

Directional weighted spatial fuzzy C-means for segmentation of brain MRI images.

Brain and its structure are extremely complex with deep levels of details. Applying image processing methods of brain image can be very useful in many practical domains. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is widely used imaging technique and has particular advantage by possessing the capability of providing highly detailed images of brain soft tissues than any other imaging techniques. The real challenge at hand for researchers is to perform precise segmentation while overcoming the effects of noise and other imaging artifacts like intensity in homogeneity introduced in medical images during image acquisition process. In this research work, a directional weighted optimized Fuzzy C-Means (dwsFCM) method has been proposed for segmentation of brain MR images. This method works by incorporating the spatial information of the pixels of the images and assigning the directional weights to the neighborhood. In order to validate the proposed segmentation framework, a comprehensive set of experiments have been performed on publically available standard simulated as well as real datasets. The experimental results showed 95% of accuracy and the performance of the proposed segmentation framework is much better and the framework suppress the sufficient amount of noise especially rician noise and reproduce good segmentation by overcoming the effect of intensity in homogeneity.

A spatial fuzzy C-means algorithm for segmentation of brain MRI images.

Brain and its structure are extremely complex with deep levels of details. Applying image processing methods of brain image can be very useful in many practical domains. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is widely used imaging technique and has particular advantage by possessing the capability of providing highly detailed images of brain soft tissues than any other imaging techniques. The real challenge at hand for researchers is to perform precise segmentation while overcoming the effects of noise and other imaging artifacts like intensity in homogeneity introduced in medical images during image acquisition process. In this research work, a directional weighted optimized Fuzzy C-Means (dwsFCM) method has been proposed for segmentation of brain MR images. This method works by incorporating the spatial information of the pixels of the images and assigning the directional weights to the neighborhood. In order to validate the proposed segmentation framework, a comprehensive set of experiments have been performed on publically available standard simulated as well as real datasets. The experimental results showed 95% of accuracy and the performance of the proposed segmentation framework is much better and the framework suppress the sufficient amount of noise especially rician noise and reproduce good segmentation by overcoming the effect of intensity in homogeneity.

Using a Patch-Wise M-Net Convolutional Neural Network for Tissue Segmentation in Brain MRI Images

Accurate segmentation of brain tissues, such as gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images, is helpful for the diagnosis of neurological disorders, such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and dementia. Studies on MRI-based brain segmentation have received significant attention in recent years based on the non-invasive imaging and good soft-tissue contrast provided by MRI. A number of studies have used conventional machine learning strategies, as well as convolutional neural network approaches. In this paper, we propose a patch-wise M-net architecture for the automatic segmentation of brain MRI images. In the proposed brain segmentation method, slices from a brain MRI scan are divided into non-overlapping patches, which are then fed into an M-net model with corresponding ground-truth patches to train the network, which is composed of two encoder-decoder processes. Dilated convolutional kernels with different sizes are used in the encoder and decoder modules to derive abundant semantic features from brain MRI scans. The proposed patch-wise M-net overcomes the drawbacks of conventional methods and provides greater retention of fine details. The proposed M-net model was trained and tested on the open-access series of imaging studies dataset. The performance was measured quantitatively using the Dice similarity coefficient. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves average segmentation accuracies of 94.81% for CSF, 95.44% for GM, and 96.33% for WM, meaning it outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

MRI assessment of changes in adipose tissue parameters after bariatric surgery.

Bariatric surgery and other therapeutic options for obese patients are often evaluated by the loss of weight, reduction of comorbidities or improved quality of life. However, little is currently known about potential therapy-related changes in the adipose tissue of obese patients. The aim of this study was therefore to quantify fat fraction (FF) and T1 relaxation time by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery and compare the resulting values with the preoperative ones. Corresponding MRI data were available from 23 patients (16 females and 7 males) that had undergone MRI before (M0) and one month after (M1) bariatric surgery. Patients were 22–59 years old (mean age 44.3 years) and their BMI ranged from 35.7–54.6 kg/m2 (mean BMI 44.6 kg/m2) at M0. Total visceral AT volumes (VVAT-T, in L) were measured by semi-automatic segmentation of axial MRI images acquired between diaphragm and femoral heads. MRI FF and T1 relaxation times were measured in well-defined regions of visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous (SAT) adipose tissue using two custom-made analysis tools. Average BMI values were 45.4 kg/m2 at time point M0 and 42.4 kg/m2 at M1. Corresponding VVAT-T values were 5.94 L and 5.33 L. Intraindividual differences in both BMI and VVAT-T were highly significant (p<0.001). Average relaxation times T1VAT were 303.7 ms at M0 and 316.9 ms at M1 (p<0.001). Corresponding T1SAT times were 283.2 ms and 280.7 ms (p = 0.137). Similarly, FFVAT differences (M0: 85.7%, M1: 83.4%) were significant (p <0.01) whereas FFSAT differences (M0: 86.1, M1: 85.9%) were not significant (p = 0.517). In conclusion, bariatric surgery is apparently not only related to a significant reduction in common parameters of adipose tissue distribution, here BMI and total visceral fat volume, but also significant changes in T1 relaxation time and fat fraction of visceral adipose tissue. Such quantitative MRI measures may potentially serve as independent biomarkers for longitudinal and cross-sectional measurements in obese patients.

PENERAPAN CITRA TERKOMPRESI PADA SEGMENTASI CITRA MENGGUNAKAN ALGORITMA K-MEANS

In the development of an image not only as a documentation of events. One area that requires image processing is in the field of medicine is radiology. In radiology there is a medical image required by doctors and researchers to be processed for patient analysis. One of the important problems in image processing and pattern recognition is image segmentation into homogeneous areas. Segmentation in medical images will result in a medical image with area boundaries that are important information for analysis. This research applies k-means algorithm to MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) image segmentation. The input image used is the image of MRI (brain and breast) has gone through the compression stage. This compression process is done with the aim of reducing memory usage but the critical information content of MRI image is still maintained. The image of the segmentation result is evaluated through performance test using GCE, VOI, MSE, and PSNR parameters.

MRI Image Segmentation Using Conditional Spatial FCM Based on Kernel-Induced Distance Measure

Fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering is the widest spread clustering approach for medical image segmentation because of its robust characteristics for data classification. But, it does not fully utilize the spatial information and is therefore very sensitive to noise and intensity inhomogeneity in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In this paper, we propose a conditional spatial kernel fuzzy C-means (CSKFCM) clustering algorithm to overcome the mentioned problem. The approach consists of two successive stages. First stage is achieved through the incorporation of local spatial interaction among adjacent pixels in the fuzzy membership function imposed by an auxiliary variable associated with each pixel. The variable describes the involvement level of each pixel for construction of membership functions and different clusters. Then, we adapted a kernel-induced distance to replace the original Euclidean distance in the FCM, which is shown to be more robust than FCM. The problem of sensitivity to noise and intensity inhomogeneity in MRI data is effectively reduced by incorporating a kernel-induced distance metric and local spatial information into a weighted membership function. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has advantages in accuracy and robustness against noise in comparison with the FCM, SFCM and CSFCM methods on MRI brain images.

Optimized Fuzzy Clustering Algorithms for Brain MRI Image Segmentation Based on Local Gaussian Probability and Anisotropic Weight Models

Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) image segmentation is one of the critical technologies of clinical medicine, and is the basis of three-dimensional reconstruction and downstream analysis between normal tissues and diseased tissues. However, there are various limitations in brain MRI images, such as gray irregularities, noise, and low contrast, reducing the accuracy of the brain MRI images segmentation. In this paper, we propose two optimization solutions for the fuzzy clustering algorithm based on local Gaussian probability fuzzy C-means (LGP-FCM) model and anisotropic weight fuzzy C-means (AW-FCM) model and apply it in brain MRI image segmentation. An FCM clustering algorithm is proposed based on AW-FCM. By introducing the new neighborhood weight calculation method, each point has the weight of anisotropy, effectively overcomes the influence of noise on the image segmentation. In addition, the LGP model is introduced in the objective function of fuzzy clustering, and a fuzzy clustering segmentation algorithm based on LGP-FCM is proposed. A clustering segmentation algorithm of adaptive scale fuzzy LGP model is proposed. The neighborhood scale corresponding to each pixel in the image is automatically estimated, which improves the robustness of the model and achieves the purpose of precise segmentation. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed LGP-FCM algorithm outperforms comparison algorithms in terms of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. LGP-FCM can effectively segment the target regions from brain MRI images.

MRI brain segmentation in combination of clustering methods with Markov random field

AbstractMedical image segmentation is a preliminary stage of inclusion in identification tools. The correct segmentation of brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images is crucial for an accurate detection of the disease diagnosis. Due to in‐homogeneity, low distinction and noise the segmentation of the brain MRI images is treated as the most challenging task. In this article, we proposed hybrid segmentation, by combining the clustering methods with Hidden Markov Random Field (HMRF) technique. This aims to decrease the computational load and improves the runtime of segmentation method, as MRF methodology is used in post‐processing the images. Its evaluation has performed on real imaging data, resulting in the classification of brain tissues with dice similarity metric. These results indicate the improvement in performance of the proposed method with various noise levels, compared with existing algorithms. In implementation, selection of clustering method provides better results in the segmentation of MRI brain images.

DETECTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF BRAIN TUMOR USING ML

Brain tumor detection and classification is the most difficult and tedious task in the area of medicinal image preparing. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is a medicinal procedure, generally adopted by the radiologist for representation of inner structure of the human body with no surgery. MRI gives abundant data about the human delicate tissue, which helps in the conclusion of brain tumor. Precise segmentation of MRI image is basic for the conclusion of brain tumor by computer supported clinical device. After segmentation of brain MRI images, tumor is grouped to be either malignant or benign, which is a confounded task since complexity varies in proportion to the tumor tissue traits like its shape, size, gray level intensities and location. Taking into account the aforesaid challenges, this paper is focused towards the design of an optimal and more accurate way for the detection of tumor from brain MRI scans and if it confirms the presence of tumor then it is focused on evaluating its stage, i.e., benign or malignant. We have experimentally shown that our proposed methodology has a greater accuracy than other existent methods for classifying tumor type to be either as Malignant or Benign since the maximum accuracy for detection of malignant tumor is 99.02% and for Benign tumor is 99.67%.

Smallest Univalue Segment Assimilating Nucleus approach to Brain MRI Image Segmentation using Fuzzy C-Means and Fuzzy K-Means Algorithms

Image segmentation still remains an important task in image processing and analysis. Sequel to any segmentation process, preprocessing activities carried out on the images have a great effect on the accuracy of the segmentation task. This paper therefore laid emphasis on the preprocessing stage of brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images Smallest Univalue Segment Assimilating Nucleus (SUSAN) and bias field correction algorithms. Subsequently, brain tissue extraction tool was employed in extracting non-brain tissues from the brain image. Afterwards, Fuzzy K-Means (FKM) and Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) segmentation algorithms were employed for segmenting brain MRI images acquired from four different MRI databases into their White Matter (WM), Gray Matter (GM) and Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) constituents. Evaluation metrics such as cluster validity functions using partition coefficients and partition entropy; area error metrics such as false positive, true positive, true negative and false negative (FN); similarity index, sensitivity and specificity were used to evaluate the performance of both techniques. A comparative analysis of the experimental results revealed that in most instances, FKM segmentation technique is preferable to FCM segmentation technique for brain MRI segmentation task.

A segmentation of brain MRI images utilizing intensity and contextual information by Markov random field

Background and objective: Image segmentation is a preliminary and fundamental step in computer aided magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images analysis. But the performance of most current image segmentation methods is easily depreciated by noise in MRI images. A precise and anti-noise segmentation of MRI images is desired in modern medical image diagnosis.Methods: This paper presents a segmentation of MRI images which combines fuzzy clustering and Markov random field (MRF). In order to utilize gray level information sufficiently and alleviate noise disturbance, fuzzy clustering is carried out on the original image and the coarse scale image of multi-scale decomposition. The spatial constraints between neighboring pixels are modeled by a defined potential function in the MRF to reduce the effect of noise and increase the integrity of segmented regions. Spatial constraints and the gray level information refined by Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm are integrated by maximum a posteriori Markov random field (MAP-MRF). In the proposed method, the fuzzy clustering membership obtained from the original image and the coarse scale image is integrated into the single-site clique potential functions by MAP-MRF. The defined potential functions and the distance weight are introduced to model the neighborhood constraint with MRF.Results: The experiments are carried out on noised synthetic images, simulated brain MR images and real MR images. The experimental results show that the proposed method has strong robustness and satisfying performance. Meanwhile the method is compared with FCM, FGFCM and FLICM algorithms visually and statistically in the experiments. In the comparison, the proposed method has achieved the best results. In the statistical comparison, the proposed method has an average similarity index of 36.8%, 33.7%, 2.75% increase against FCM, FGFCM and FLICM.Conclusions: This paper proposes a MRI segmentation method combining fuzzy clustering and Markov random field. The method is tested in the noised image databases and comparison experiments, which shows that it is a precise and robust MRI segmentation method.

Brain tumor segmentation using holistically nested neural networks in MRI images.

Gliomas are rapidly progressive, neurologically devastating, largely fatal brain tumors. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely used technique employed in the diagnosis and management of gliomas in clinical practice. MRI is also the standard imaging modality used to delineate the brain tumor target as part of treatment planning for the administration of radiation therapy. Despite more than 20 yr of research and development, computational brain tumor segmentation in MRI images remains a challenging task. We are presenting a novel method of automatic image segmentation based on holistically nested neural networks that could be employed for brain tumor segmentation of MRI images. Two preprocessing techniques were applied to MRI images. The N4ITK method was employed for correction of bias field distortion. A novel landmark-based intensity normalization method was developed so that tissue types have a similar intensity scale in images of different subjects for the same MRI protocol. The holistically nested neural networks (HNN), which extend from the convolutional neural networks (CNN) with a deep supervision through an additional weighted-fusion output layer, was trained to learn the multiscale and multilevel hierarchical appearance representation of the brain tumor in MRI images and was subsequently applied to produce a prediction map of the brain tumor on test images. Finally, the brain tumor was obtained through an optimum thresholding on the prediction map. The proposed method was evaluated on both the Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation (BRATS) Benchmark 2013 training datasets, and clinical data from our institute. A dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and sensitivity of 0.78 and 0.81 were achieved on 20 BRATS 2013 training datasets with high-grade gliomas (HGG), based on a two-fold cross-validation. The HNN model built on the BRATS 2013 training data was applied to ten clinical datasets with HGG from a locally developed database. DSC and sensitivity of 0.83 and 0.85 were achieved. A quantitative comparison indicated that the proposed method outperforms the popular fully convolutional network (FCN) method. In terms of efficiency, the proposed method took around 10 h for training with 50,000 iterations, and approximately 30 s for testing of a typical MRI image in the BRATS 2013 dataset with a size of 160 × 216 × 176, using a DELL PRECISION workstation T7400, with an NVIDIA Tesla K20c GPU. An effective brain tumor segmentation method for MRI images based on a HNN has been developed. The high level of accuracy and efficiency make this method practical in brain tumor segmentation. It may play a crucial role in both brain tumor diagnostic analysis and in the treatment planning of radiation therapy.

Label fusion method based on sparse patch representation for the brain MRI image segmentation

The multi-Atlas patch-based label fusion method (MAS-PBM) has emerged as a promising technique for the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image segmentation. The state-of-the-art MAS-PBM approach measures the patch similarity between the target image and each atlas image using the features extracted from images intensity only. It is well known that each atlas consists of both MRI image and labelled image (which is also called the map). In other words, the map information is not used in calculating the similarity in the existing MAS-PBM. To improve the segmentation result, the authors propose an enhanced MAS-PBM in which the maps will be used for similarity measure. The first component of the proposed method is that an initial segmentation result (i.e. an appropriate map for the target) is obtained by using either the non-local-patch-based label fusion method (NPBM) or the sparse patch-based label fusion method (SPBM) based on the grey scales of patches. Then, the SPBM is applied again to obtain the finer segmentation based on the labels of patches. The authors called these two versions of the proposed fusion method as MAS-PBM-NPBM and MAS-PBM-SPBM. Experimental results show that more accurate segmentation results are achieved compared with those of the majority voting, NPBM, SPBM, STEPS and the hierarchical multi-atlas label fusion with multi-scale feature representation and label-specific patch partition.