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Hybrid method for the detection of pulmonary nodules using positron emission tomography/computed tomography: a preliminary study

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

In this study, an automated scheme for detecting pulmonary nodules using a novel hybrid PET/CT approach is proposed, which is designed to detect pulmonary nodules by combining data from both sets of images.

Methods

Solitary nodules were detected on CT by a cylindrical filter that we developed previously, and in the PET imaging, high-uptake regions were detected automatically using thresholding based on standardized uptake values along with false-positive reduction by means of the anatomical information obtained from the CT images. Initial candidate nodules were identified by combining the results. False positives among the initial candidates were eliminated by a rule-based classifier and three support vector machines on the basis of the characteristic features obtained from CT and PET images.

Results

We validated the proposed method using 100 cases of PET/CT images that were obtained during a cancer-screening program. The detection performance was assessed by free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) analysis. The sensitivity was 83.0 % with the number of false positives/case at 5.0, and it was 8 % higher than the sensitivity of independent detection systems using CT or PET images alone.

Conclusion

   Detection performance indicates that our method may be of practical use for the identification of pulmonary nodules in PET/CT images.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to C.Wei-Ping and S.Tamai from Nagoya Radiological Diagnosis Center, N. Hayashi and M. Koike from Fujita Health University, and Yoya Tomita from Mie University Hospital.

Conflict of Interest

This research is supported in part by “Computational Anatomy for Computer-aided Diagnosis and Therapy: Frontiers of Medical Image Sciences” funded by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, MEXT, Japan; in part by Tateishi Science and Technology Foundation, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Radiological Technology, School of Health Sciences, Fujita Health University, 1-98 Dengakugakubo, Kutsukake, Toyoake, Aichi, 470-1192, Japan

    Atsushi Teramoto

  2. Division of Regeneration and Advanced Medical Sciences, Department of Intelligent Image Information, Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu, 501-1194, Japan

    Hiroshi Fujita

  3. East Nagoya Imaging Diagnosis Center, 3-4-26 Jiyugaoka Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 464-0044, Japan

    Katsuaki Takahashi, Osamu Yamamuro & Tsuneo Tamaki

  4. Nagoya Radiological Diagnosis Center, 1-162 Hokke, Nakagawa-ku, Nagoya, 454-0933, Japan

    Masami Nishio & Toshiki Kobayashi

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  1. Atsushi Teramoto
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Correspondence to Atsushi Teramoto.

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Teramoto, A., Fujita, H., Takahashi, K. et al. Hybrid method for the detection of pulmonary nodules using positron emission tomography/computed tomography: a preliminary study. Int J CARS 9, 59–69 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0910-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0910-y

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