Skin Surface Detection in 3D Optoacoustic Mesoscopy Based on Dynamic Programming

Nitkunanantharajah S, Zahnd G, Olivo M, Navab N, Mohajerani P, Ntziachristos V (2020)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Book Volume: 39

Pages Range: 458-467

Article Number: 8760559

Journal Issue: 2

DOI: 10.1109/TMI.2019.2928393

Abstract

Optoacoustic (photoacoustic) mesoscopy offers unique capabilities in skin imaging and resolves skin features associated with detection, diagnosis, and management of disease. A critical first step in the quantitative analysis of clinical optoacoustic images is to identify the skin surface in a rapid, reliable, and automated manner. Nevertheless, most common edge- and surface-detection algorithms cannot reliably detect the skin surface on 3D raster-scan optoacoustic mesoscopy (RSOM) images, due to discontinuities and diffuse interfaces in the image. We present herein a novel dynamic programming approach that extracts the skin boundary as a 2D surface in one single step, as opposed to consecutive extraction of several independent 1D contours. A domain-specific energy function is introduced, taking into account the properties of volumetric optoacoustic mesoscopy images. The accuracy of the proposed method is validated on scans of the volar forearm of 19 volunteers with different skin complexions, for which the skin surface has been traced manually to provide a reference. In addition, the robustness and the limitations of the method are demonstrated on data where the skin boundaries are low-contrast or ill-defined. The automatic skin surface detection method can improve the speed and accuracy in the analysis of quantitative features seen on the RSOM images and accelerate the clinical translation of the technique. Our method can likely be extended to identify other types of surfaces in the RSOM and other imaging modalities.

Involved external institutions

Technische Universität München (TUM) DE Germany (DE) Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) SG Singapore (SG)

How to cite

APA:

Nitkunanantharajah, S., Zahnd, G., Olivo, M., Navab, N., Mohajerani, P., & Ntziachristos, V. (2020). Skin Surface Detection in 3D Optoacoustic Mesoscopy Based on Dynamic Programming. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 39(2), 458-467. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMI.2019.2928393

MLA:

Nitkunanantharajah, Suhanyaa, et al. "Skin Surface Detection in 3D Optoacoustic Mesoscopy Based on Dynamic Programming." IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging 39.2 (2020): 458-467.

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