Abstract
Purpose
Volumetric measurements of plexiform neurofibromas (PNs) are time consuming and error prone, as they require the delineation of the PN boundaries, which is mostly impractical in the daily clinical setup. Accurate volumetric measurements are seldom performed for these tumors mainly due to their great dispersion, size and multiple locations. This paper presents a semiautomatic method for segmentation of PN from STIR MRI scans.
Methods
Plexiform neurofibroma interactive segmentation tool (PNist) is a new tool to segment PNs in STIR MRI scans. The method is based on histogram tumor models computed from a training set.
Results
Experimental results from 28 datasets show an average absolute volume difference of 6.8 % with an average user time of approximately 7 min versus more than 13 min with manual delineation. In complex cases, the PNist user time is less than half in compared to state-of-the-art tools.
Conclusions
PNist is a new method for the semiautomatic segmentation of PN lesions. Its simplicity and reliability make it unique among other state-of-the-art methods. It has the potential to become a clinical tool that allows the reliable evaluation of PN burden and progression.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Gilbert Israeli Neurofibromatosis Center (GINFC) for their contribution of providing the real data and supporting the medical part of the paper. The authors also thank Vicki Myers for editorial assistance. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.
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Weizman, L., Helfer, D., Ben Bashat, D. et al. PNist: interactive volumetric measurements of plexiform neurofibromas in MRI scans. Int J CARS 9, 683–693 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0961-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0961-0