title: Variational image segmentation for endoscopic human colonic aberrant crypt foci.
abstract: The aim of this paper is to introduce a variational image segmentation method for assessing the aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in the human colon captured in vivo by endoscopy. ACF are thought to be precursors for colorectal cancer, and therefore their early detection may play an important clinical role. We enhance the active contours without edges model of Chan and Vese to account for the ACF's particular structure. We employ level sets to represent the segmentation boundaries and discretize in space by finite elements and in (artificial) time by finite differences. The approach is able to identify the ACF, their boundaries, and some of the internal crypts' orifices.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mathematics, Department ofMathematics, University of Coimbra, 3001-454 Coimbra, Portugal. isabelf@mat.uc.pt
authors.forename: Isabel N
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Figueiredo
authors.forename: Pedro N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Figueiredo
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stadler
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ghattas
authors.forename: Adérito
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Araujo
mesh_terms: D058739:Aberrant Crypt Foci / Q000473:pathology*; D000465:Algorithms; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D016099:Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity