title: Cardiac Multi-detector CT Segmentation Based on Multiscale Directional Edge Detector and 3D Level Set.
abstract: Extraction of the cardiac surfaces of interest from multi-detector computed tomographic (MDCT) data is a pre-requisite step for cardiac analysis, as well as for image guidance procedures. Most of the existing methods need manual corrections, which is time-consuming. We present a fully automatic segmentation technique for the extraction of the right ventricle, left ventricular endocardium and epicardium from MDCT images. The method consists in a 3D level set surface evolution approach coupled to a new stopping function based on a multiscale directional second derivative Gaussian filter, which is able to stop propagation precisely on the real boundary of the structures of interest. We validated the segmentation method on 18 MDCT volumes from healthy and pathologic subjects using manual segmentation performed by a team of expert radiologists as gold standard. Segmentation errors were assessed for each structure resulting in a surface-to-surface mean error below 0.5 mm and a percentage of surface distance with errors less than 1 mm above 80%. Moreover, in comparison to other segmentation approaches, already proposed in previous work, our method presented an improved accuracy (with surface distance errors less than 1 mm increased of 8-20% for all structures). The obtained results suggest that our approach is accurate and effective for the segmentation of ventricular cavities and myocardium from MDCT images.
authors: Experimental Imaging Center, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, via olgettina 58, 20132, Milan, Italy. sofigantunes@gmail.com.|Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. sofigantunes@gmail.com.
authors: Sofia
authors: S
authors: Antunes
authors: Experimental Imaging Center, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, via olgettina 58, 20132, Milan, Italy.|Department of Radiology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
authors: Antonio
authors: A
authors: Esposito
authors: Experimental Imaging Center, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, via olgettina 58, 20132, Milan, Italy.|Department of Radiology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Palmisano
authors: Experimental Imaging Center, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, via olgettina 58, 20132, Milan, Italy.|Department of Radiology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
authors: Caterina
authors: C
authors: Colantoni
authors: Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors: Sergio
authors: S
authors: Cerutti
authors: Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology CNR, Segrate, Italy.
authors: Giovanna
authors: G
authors: Rizzo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004699:Endocardium / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D061330:Multidetector Computed Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D010496:Pericardium / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*
keywords: Cardiac segmentation; Edge detection; Filter bank; Level set