title: Joint segmentation of 3D femoral lumen and outer wall surfaces from MR images.
abstract: We propose a novel algorithm to jointly delineate the femoral artery lumen and outer wall surfaces from 3D black-blood MR images, while enforcing the spatial consistency of the reoriented MR slices along the medial axis of the femoral artery. We demonstrate that the resulting optimization problem of the proposed segmentation can be solved globally and exactly by means of convex relaxation, for which we introduce a novel coupled continuous max-flow (CCOMF) model based on an Ishikawa-type flow configuration and show its duality to the studied convex relaxed optimization problem. Using the proposed CCMF model, the exactness and globalness of its dual convex relaxation problem is proven. Experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method yielded high accuracy (i.e. Dice similarity coefficient > 85%) for both the lumen and outer wall and high reproducibility (intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.95) for generating vessel wall area. The proposed method outperformed the previous method, in terms of computation time, by a factor of pproximately 20.
authors: Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada. eukwatta@robarts.ca
authors: Eranga
authors: E
authors: Ukwatta
authors: Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
authors: Jing
authors: J
authors: Yuan
authors: Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
authors: Wu
authors: W
authors: Qiu
authors: Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Rajchl
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors: Bernard
authors: B
authors: Chiu
authors: Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
authors: Shadi
authors: S
authors: Shavakh
authors: Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.
authors: Jianrong
authors: J
authors: Xu
authors: Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
authors: Aaron
authors: A
authors: Fenster
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D005263:Femoral Artery / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D007383:Intermittent Claudication / Q000473:pathology*; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity