Gong X, Ma C, Yang P, Chen Y, Du C, Fu C, Lu JP. Computer-aided pancreas segmentation based on 3D GRE Dixon MRI: a feasibility study.
Acta Radiol Open 2019;
8:2058460119834690. [PMID:
30944729 PMCID:
PMC6440072 DOI:
10.1177/2058460119834690]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2018] [Accepted: 01/28/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Background
Pancreas segmentation is of great significance for pancreatic cancer radiotherapy positioning, pancreatic structure, and function evaluation.
Purpose
To investigate the feasibility of computer-aided pancreas segmentation based on optimized three-dimensional (3D) Dixon magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Material and Methods
Seventeen healthy volunteers (13 men, 4 women; mean age = 53.4 ± 13.2 years; age range = 28–76 years) underwent routine and optimized 3D gradient echo (GRE) Dixon MRI at 3.0 T. The computer-aided segmentation of the pancreas was executed by the Medical Imaging Interaction ToolKit (MITK) with the traditional segmentation algorithm pipeline (a threshold method and a morphological method) on the opposed-phase and water images of Dixon. The performances of our proposed computer segmentation method were evaluated by Dice coefficients and two-dimensional (2D)/3D visualization figures, which were compared for the opposed-phase and water images of routine and optimized Dixon sequences.
Results
The dice coefficients of the computer-aided pancreas segmentation were 0.633 ± 0.080 and 0.716 ± 0.033 for opposed-phase and water images of routine Dixon MRI, respectively, while they were 0.415 ± 0.143 and 0.779 ± 0.048 for the optimized Dixon MRI, respectively. The Dice index was significantly higher based on the water images of optimized Dixon than those in the other three groups (all P values < 0.001), including water images of routine Dixon MRI and both of the opposed-phase images of routine and optimized Dixon sequences.
Conclusion
Computer-aided pancreas segmentation based on Dixon MRI is feasible. The water images of optimized Dixon obtained the best similarity with a good stability.
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