title: Three-dimensional segmentation of fluid-associated abnormalities in retinal OCT: probability constrained graph-search-graph-cut.
abstract: An automated method is reported for segmenting 3-D fluid-associated abnormalities in the retina, so-called symptomatic exudate-associated derangements (SEAD), from 3-D OCT retinal images of subjects suffering from exudative age-related macular degeneration. In the first stage of a two-stage approach, retinal layers are segmented, candidate SEAD regions identified, and the retinal OCT image is flattened using a candidate-SEAD aware approach. In the second stage, a probability constrained combined graph search-graph cut method refines the candidate SEADs by integrating the candidate volumes into the graph cut cost function as probability constraints. The proposed method was evaluated on 15 spectral domain OCT images from 15 subjects undergoing intravitreal anti-VEGF injection treatment. Leave-one-out evaluation resulted in a true positive volume fraction (TPVF), false positive volume fraction (FPVF) and relative volume difference ratio (RVDR) of 86.5%, 1.7%, and 12.8%, respectively. The new graph cut-graph search method significantly outperformed both the traditional graph cut and traditional graph search approaches (p < 0.01, p < 0.04) and has the potential to improve clinical management of patients with choroidal neovascularization due to exudative age-related macular degeneration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. xinjian-chen@uiowa.edu
authors.forename: Xinjian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Meindert
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niemeijer
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Kyungmoo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Abramoff
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sonka
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D005122:Exudates and Transudates; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000473:pathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012160:Retina / Q000473:pathology*; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*