Segmenting colon wall via level set techniques
AssigneeThe Government of the U.S.A. as represented by the Secretary of the Dept. of Health & Human Services
InventorsRobert L. Van Uitert, JR., Ronald M. Summers, Ingmar Bitter
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Various level set techniques can be used to automatically segment the colon wall, including identifying the colon wall outer boundary. A speed image can be used during level set processing. For example, the speed image can be generated via inverting the gradient perpendicular to the segmented inner boundary of the colon wall. The techniques can be useful for determining wall thickness, which can be used to classify polyp candidates, diagnose diseases of the colon, and the like.
Claims39
A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving a digital representation for a colon, wherein the digital representation represents at least a portion of a colon wall for the colon;
- identifying an outer boundary for the colon wall via a level set technique;
- and
- outputting an indication of the outer boundary of the colon wall.
An apparatus comprising:
- means for receiving a digital representation for a colon, wherein the digital representation represents at least a portion of a colon wall for the colon;
- means for identifying an outer boundary for the colon wall via level set processing;
- and
- means for outputting an indication of the outer boundary of the colon wall.
A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving a digital representation for a colon, wherein the digital representation represents at least a portion of a colon wall for the colon;
- segmenting the colon wall via a level set technique, whereby the segmenting results in a segmented colon wall for the digital representation;
- and
- via the segmented colon wall for the digital representation, automatically calculating colon wall thickness for at least a portion of the colon wall.
A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving a three-dimensional digital representation for a colon, wherein the digital representation comprises a computed tomography image representing at least a portion of a colon wall for the colon;
- from the digital representation for the colon, generating a lumen segmentation indicating a boundary of an inner wall of the colon;
- producing lumen segmentation level sets from the lumen segmentation;
- from the lumen segmentation and the computed tomography image, generating a speed image via a three-dimensional derivative of the computed tomography image in a direction perpendicular to lumen segmentation level sets, wherein local non-maximum gradients along level set expansion direction are suppressed, and generating the speed image comprises applying a sigmoid filter emphasizing high directional derivatives and inverting the speed image;
- generating a level set image via a level set segmentation of an outer wall of the colon via three-dimensional geodesic active contour level set segmentation with the speed image, wherein the lumen segmentation level sets are used as an initial level set boundary, an advection term attracts level set evolution to high gradient values, and a curvature term prevents evolution of the boundary from exceeding a maximum curvature;
- determining a boundary of the outer wall of the colon via an isocontour in the level set image;
- and
- outputting an indication of the boundary of the outer wall of the colon.
A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving a digital representation for an anatomical structure, wherein the digital representation represents at least a portion of a wall for the anatomical structure;
- identifying an outer boundary for the wall via a level set technique;
- and
- outputting an indication of the outer boundary of the wall.
A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving a digital representation for a colon, wherein the digital representation represents at least a portion of a wall for the colon;
- determining wall thickness for the wall;
- and
- detecting presence of colonic diverticular disease via determined wall thickness for the wall.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.