title: Automatic pericardium segmentation and quantification of epicardial fat from computed tomography angiography.
abstract: Recent findings indicate a strong correlation between the risk of future heart disease and the volume of adipose tissue inside of the pericardium. So far, large-scale studies have been hindered by the fact that manual delineation of the pericardium is extremely time-consuming and that existing methods for automatic delineation lack accuracy. An efficient and fully automatic approach to pericardium segmentation and epicardial fat volume (EFV) estimation is presented, based on a variant of multi-atlas segmentation for spatial initialization and a random forest classifier for accurate pericardium detection. Experimental validation on a set of 30 manually delineated computer tomography angiography volumes shows a significant improvement on state-of-the-art in terms of EFV estimation [mean absolute EFV difference: 3.8 ml (4.7%), Pearson correlation: 0.99] with run times suitable for large-scale studies (52 s). Further, the results compare favorably with interobserver variability measured on 10 volumes.
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology , Department of Signals and Systems, Hörsalsvägen 9-11, Gothenburg 412 96, Sweden.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Norlén
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology , Department of Signals and Systems, Hörsalsvägen 9-11, Gothenburg 412 96, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alvén
authors.affiliation: Gothenburg University , Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Medicine, The Wallenberg Laboratory, Bruna stråket 16, Gothenburg 413 45, Sweden.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Molnar
authors.affiliation: Gothenburg University , Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Medicine, The Wallenberg Laboratory, Bruna stråket 16, Gothenburg 413 45, Sweden.
authors.forename: Olof
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Enqvist
authors.affiliation: Gothenburg University , Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Medicine, The Wallenberg Laboratory, Bruna stråket 16, Gothenburg 413 45, Sweden.
authors.forename: Rauni Rossi
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Norrlund
authors.affiliation: Gothenburg University , Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Medicine, The Wallenberg Laboratory, Bruna stråket 16, Gothenburg 413 45, Sweden.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brandberg
authors.affiliation: Gothenburg University , Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Medicine, The Wallenberg Laboratory, Bruna stråket 16, Gothenburg 413 45, Sweden.
authors.forename: Göran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bergström
authors.affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Signals and Systems, Hörsalsvägen 9-11, Gothenburg 412 96, Sweden; Lund University, Faculty of Engineering, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Sölvegatan 18, Lund 221 00, Sweden.
authors.forename: Fredrik
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kahl
keywords: computed tomography angiography; epicardial fat quantification; machine learning; pericardium; segmentation