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Measurement of smaller colon polyp in CT colonography images using morphological image processing

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

Abstract

Purpose

Automated measurement of the size and shape of colon polyps is one of the challenges in Computed tomography colonography (CTC). The objective of this retrospective study was to improve the sensitivity and specificity of smaller polyp measurement in CTC using image processing techniques.

Methods

A domain knowledge-based method has been implemented with hybrid method of colon segmentation, morphological image processing operators for detecting the colonic structures, and the decision-making system for delineating the smaller polyp-based on a priori knowledge.

Results

The method was applied on 45 CTC dataset. The key finding was that the smaller polyps were accurately measured. In addition to 6–9 mm range, polyps of even <5 mm were also detected. The results were validated qualitatively and quantitatively using both 2D MPR and 3D view. Implementation was done on a high-performance computer with parallel processing. It takes \({\sim }4\) min for measuring the smaller polyp in a dataset of 500 CTC images. With this method, \({\hbox {TPR}}=87.5\% , {\hbox {TNR}}=82\%, {\hbox {PPV}}=94.45\%, {\hbox {NPV}}=64.28\%, F1\, score=90.66\%\) and \(acuracy=86.27\% \) were achieved.

Conclusions

The domain-based approach with morphological image processing has given good results. The smaller polyps were measured accurately which helps in making right clinical decisions. Qualitatively and quantitatively the results were acceptable when compared to the ground truth at \(\alpha =5\% \).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank National Cancer Institute, USA for providing the anonymized CTC images for this research.

Funding Manipal University supported this work under Dr. TMA Pai Ph.D. Scholarship Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty, Computer Science and Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, Manipal, 576104, India

    K. N. Manjunath & P. C. Siddalingaswamy

  2. Faculty, Biomedical Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, Manipal, 576104, India

    G. K. Prabhu

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  1. K. N. Manjunath
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to K. N. Manjunath.

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Conflict of interest

Manjunath KN, Siddalingaswamy PC and Prabhu GK declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. For this type of study, formal consent is not required. Still, the institutional ethical committee (IEC 211/2014 dated 9th April, 2014) clearance has been obtained from Kasturba Hospital, Manipal to use the secondary data in this study.

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Manjunath, K.N., Siddalingaswamy, P.C. & Prabhu, G.K. Measurement of smaller colon polyp in CT colonography images using morphological image processing. Int J CARS 12, 1845–1855 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-017-1615-4

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