title: Automated nomenclature of bronchial branches extracted from CT images and its application to biopsy path planning in virtual bronchoscopy.
abstract: We propose a novel anatomical labeling algorithm for bronchial branches extracted from CT images. This method utilizes multiple branching models for anatomical labeling. In the actual labeling process, the method selects the best candidate models at each branching point. Also a special labeling procedure is proposed for the right upper lobe. As an application of the automated nomenclature of bronchial branches, we utilized anatomical labeling results for assisting biopsy planning. When a user inputs a target point around suspicious regions on the display of a virtual bronchoscopy (VB) system, the path to the desired position is displayed as a sequence of anatomical names of branches. We applied the proposed method to 25 cases of CT images. The labeling accuracy was about 90%. Also the paths to desired positions were generated by using anatomical names in VB.
authors: Grad. School of Information Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan. kensaku@is.nagoya-u.ac.jp
authors: Kensaku
authors: K
authors: Mori
authors: Sinya
authors: S
authors: Ema
authors: Takayuki
authors: T
authors: Kitasaka
authors: Yoshito
authors: Y
authors: Mekada
authors: Ichiro
authors: I
authors: Ide
authors: Hiroshi
authors: H
authors: Murase
authors: Yasuhito
authors: Y
authors: Suenaga
authors: Hirotsugu
authors: H
authors: Takabatake
authors: Masaki
authors: M
authors: Mori
authors: Hiroshi
authors: H
authors: Natori