Paper
29 March 2016 An efficient method for accurate segmentation of LV in contrast-enhanced cardiac MR images
Venkata Suryanarayana K., Abhishek Mitra, Srikrishnan V., Hyun Hee Jo, Anup Bidesi
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
Segmentation of left ventricle (LV) in contrast-enhanced cardiac MR images is a challenging task because of high variability in the image intensity. This is due to a) wash-in and wash-out of the contrast agent over time and b) poor contrast around the epicardium (outer wall) region. Current approaches for segmentation of the endocardium (inner wall) usually involve application of a threshold within the region of interest, followed by refinement techniques like active contours. A limitation of this method is under-segmentation of the inner wall because of gradual loss of contrast at the wall boundary. On the other hand, the challenge in outer wall segmentation is the lack of reliable boundaries because of poor contrast. There are four main contributions in this paper to address the aforementioned issues. First, a seed image is selected using variance based approach on 4D time-frame images over which initial endocardium and epicardium is segmented. Secondly, we propose a patch based feature which overcomes the problem of gradual contrast loss for LV endocardium segmentation. Third, we propose a novel Iterative-Edge-Refinement (IER) technique for epicardium segmentation. Fourth, we propose a greedy search algorithm for propagating the initial contour segmented on seed-image across other time frame images. We have experimented our technique on five contrast-enhanced cardiac MR Datasets (4D) having a total of 1097 images. The segmentation results for all 1097 images have been visually inspected by a clinical expert and have shown good accuracy.
© (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Venkata Suryanarayana K., Abhishek Mitra, Srikrishnan V., Hyun Hee Jo, and Anup Bidesi "An efficient method for accurate segmentation of LV in contrast-enhanced cardiac MR images", Proc. SPIE 9788, Medical Imaging 2016: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging, 97882E (29 March 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2216704
Advertisement
Advertisement
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission  Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace
KEYWORDS
Image segmentation

Magnetic resonance imaging

Heart

Rigid registration

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging

Data modeling

Electrocardiography

Back to Top