title: Simultaneous segmentation and anatomical labeling of the cerebral vasculature.
abstract: We present a novel algorithm for the simultaneous segmentation and anatomical labeling of the cerebral vasculature. Unlike existing approaches that first attempt to obtain a good segmentation and then perform labeling, we optimize for both by simultaneously taking into account the image evidence and the prior knowledge about the geometry and connectivity of the vasculature. This is achieved by first constructing an overcomplete graph capturing the vasculature, and then selecting and labeling the subset of edges that most likely represents the true vasculature. We formulate the latter problem as an Integer Program (IP), which can be solved efficiently to provable optimality. We evaluate our approach on a publicly available dataset of 50 cerebral MRA images, and demonstrate that it compares favorably against state-of-the-art methods.
authors.affiliation: Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Medical Image Computing (MIC), ESAT-PSI, Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Electronic address: david.robben@esat.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Robben
authors.affiliation: Computer Vision Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Center for Electronic and Microtechnology (CSEM), Switzerland.
authors.forename: Engin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Türetken
authors.affiliation: Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Department of Radiology, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Translational MRI, Department of Imaging & Pathology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sunaert
authors.affiliation: Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Department of Neurology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Leuven Research Institute for Neuroscience & Disease (LIND), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Laboratory of Neurobiology, Vesalius Research Center, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Thijs
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wilms
authors.affiliation: Computer Vision Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fua
authors.affiliation: Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Medical Image Computing (MIC), ESAT-PSI, Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Frederik
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.affiliation: Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Medical Image Computing (MIC), ESAT-PSI, Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Suetens
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D054022:Cerebrum / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: Anatomical labeling; Centerline extraction; Cerebral vasculature; Circle of Willis; Integer programming; Segmentation