Hepatic vessel segmentation using variational level set combined with non-local robust statistics.
Hepatic vessel segmentation is a challenging step in therapy guided by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This paper presents an improved variational level set method, which uses non-local robust statistics to suppress the influence of noise in MR images. The non-local robust statistics, which represent vascular features, are learned adaptively from seeds provided by users. K-means clustering in neighborhoods of seeds is utilized to exclude inappropriate seeds, which are obviously corrupted by noise. The neighborhoods of appropriate seeds are placed in an array to calculate the non-local robust statistics, and the variational level set formulation can be constructed. Bias correction is utilized in the level set formulation to reduce the influence of intensity inhomogeneity of MRI. Experiments were conducted over real MR images, and showed that the proposed method performed better on small hepatic vessel segmentation compared with other segmentation methods.
Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
Siyu
S
Lu
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Chinese PLA 309th Hospital, Beijing 100091, People's Republic of China.
Hui
H
Huang
Department of Interventional Ultrasound, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, People's Republic of China.
Ping
P
Liang
Department of Interventional Ultrasound, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, People's Republic of China.
Gang
G
Chen
Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: xiaoliang@mail.buct.edu.cn.
Liang
L
Xiao
D000465:Algorithms; D006503:Hepatic Veins / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008099:Liver / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D053783:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Interventional / Q000379:methods*
K-means clustering; Level set; MRI; Medical image segmentation