Fast Automatic Segmentation of the Esophagus from 3D CT data using a Probabilistic Model

Feulner J, Zhou SK, Seifert S, Hornegger J, Comaniciu D, Cavallaro AJ (2009)


Publication Type: Authored book, Volume of book series

Publication year: 2009

Journal

Original Authors: Feulner J., Zhou S., Cavallaro A., Seifert S., Hornegger J., Comaniciu D.

Publisher: Springer-verlag

City/Town: Berlin

Book Volume: null

Pages Range: 255-262

Event location: London

Journal Issue: null

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-04268-3_32

Abstract

Automated segmentation of the esophagus in CT images is of high value to radiologists for oncological examinations of the mediastinum. It can serve as a guideline and prevent confusion with pathological tissue. However, segmentation is a challenging problem due to low contrast and versatile appearance of the esophagus. In this paper, a two step method is proposed which first finds the approximate shape using a "detect and connect" approach. A classifier is trained to find short segments of the esophagus which are approximated by an elliptical model. Recently developed techniques in discriminative learning and pruning of the search space enable a rapid detection of possible esophagus segments. Prior shape knowledge of the complete esophagus is modeled using a Markov chain framework, which allows efficient inferrence of the approximate shape from the detected candidate segments. In a refinement step, the surface of the detected shape is non-rigidly deformed to better fit the organ boundaries. In contrast to previously proposed methods, no user interaction is required. It was evaluated on 117 datasets and achieves a mean segmentation error of 2.28mm with less than 9s computation time. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.

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APA:

Feulner, J., Zhou, S.K., Seifert, S., Hornegger, J., Comaniciu, D., & Cavallaro, A.J. (2009). Fast Automatic Segmentation of the Esophagus from 3D CT data using a Probabilistic Model. Berlin: Springer-verlag.

MLA:

Feulner, Johannes, et al. Fast Automatic Segmentation of the Esophagus from 3D CT data using a Probabilistic Model. Berlin: Springer-verlag, 2009.

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