title: Fully automatic multi-atlas segmentation of CTA for partial volume correction in cardiac SPECT/CT.
abstract: Anatomical-based partial volume correction (PVC) has been shown to improve image quality and quantitative accuracy in cardiac SPECT/CT. However, this method requires manual segmentation of various organs from contrast-enhanced computed tomography angiography (CTA) data. In order to achieve fully automatic CTA segmentation for clinical translation, we investigated the most common multi-atlas segmentation methods. We also modified the multi-atlas segmentation method by introducing a novel label fusion algorithm for multiple organ segmentation to eliminate overlap and gap voxels. To evaluate our proposed automatic segmentation, eight canine99mTc-labeled red blood cell SPECT/CT datasets that incorporated PVC were analyzed, using the leave-one-out approach. The Dice similarity coefficient of each organ was computed. Compared to the conventional label fusion method, our proposed label fusion method effectively eliminated gaps and overlaps and improved the CTA segmentation accuracy. The anatomical-based PVC of cardiac SPECT images with automatic multi-atlas segmentation provided consistent image quality and quantitative estimation of intramyocardial blood volume, as compared to those derived using manual segmentation. In conclusion, our proposed automatic multi-atlas segmentation method of CTAs is feasible, practical, and facilitates anatomical-based PVC of cardiac SPECT/CT images.
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250100, People's Republic of China. Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, United States of America.
authors.forename: Qingyi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hassan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mohy-Ud-Din
authors.forename: Nabil E
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Boutagy
authors.forename: Mingyan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Silin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Stendahl
authors.forename: Albert J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Sinusas
authors.forename: Chi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000792:Angiography; D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D001810:Blood Volume; D004285:Dogs; D006321:Heart / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D000072098:Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography Computed Tomography