title: A new method of detecting pulmonary nodules with PET/CT based on an improved watershed algorithm.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Integrated 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) is widely performed for staging solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs). However, the diagnostic efficacy of SPNs based on PET/CT is not optimal. Here, we propose a method of detection based on PET/CT that can differentiate malignant and benign SPNs with few false-positives.
  
  
  METHODS
  Our proposed method combines the features of positron-emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT). A dynamic threshold segmentation method was used to identify lung parenchyma in CT images and suspicious areas in PET images. Then, an improved watershed method was used to mark suspicious areas on the CT image. Next, the support vector machine (SVM) method was used to classify SPNs based on textural features of CT images and metabolic features of PET images to validate the proposed method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our proposed method was more efficient than traditional methods and methods based on the CT or PET features alone (sensitivity 95.6%; average of 2.9 false positives per scan).
authors: College of Computer Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China.
authors: Juanjuan
authors: J
authors: Zhao
authors: College of Computer Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China.
authors: Guohua
authors: G
authors: Ji
authors: College of Computer Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China.
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Qiang
authors: College of Computer Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China.
authors: Xiaohong
authors: X
authors: Han
authors: College of Computer Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China.
authors: Bo
authors: B
authors: Pei
authors: College of Computer Science and Engineering, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710048, China.
authors: Zhenghao
authors: Z
authors: Shi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D060388:Support Vector Machine; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18