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Xue M, Zhang M, Li S, Zou Y, Zhu Q. Automated pipeline for breast cancer diagnosis using US assisted diffuse optical tomography. BIOMEDICAL OPTICS EXPRESS 2023; 14:6072-6087. [PMID: 38021111 PMCID: PMC10659805 DOI: 10.1364/boe.502244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2023] [Revised: 10/11/2023] [Accepted: 10/11/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023]
Abstract
Ultrasound (US)-guided diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a portable and non-invasive imaging modality for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment response monitoring. However, DOT data pre-processing and imaging reconstruction often require labor intensive manual processing which hampers real-time diagnosis. In this study, we aim at providing an automated US-assisted DOT pre-processing, imaging and diagnosis pipeline to achieve near real-time diagnosis. We have developed an automated DOT pre-processing method including motion detection, mismatch classification using deep-learning approach, and outlier removal. US-lesion information needed for DOT reconstruction was extracted by a semi-automated lesion segmentation approach combined with a US reading algorithm. A deep learning model was used to evaluate the quality of the reconstructed DOT images and a two-step deep-learning model developed earlier is implemented to provide final diagnosis based on US imaging features and DOT measurements and imaging results. The presented US-assisted DOT pipeline accurately processed the DOT measurements and reconstruction and reduced the procedure time to 2 to 3 minutes while maintained a comparable classification result with manually processed dataset.
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Affiliation(s)
- Minghao Xue
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
| | - Menghao Zhang
- Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
| | - Shuying Li
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
| | - Yun Zou
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
| | - Quing Zhu
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
- Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
- Department of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
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Nizam NI, Ochoa M, Smith JT, Intes X. Deep learning-based fusion of widefield diffuse optical tomography and micro-CT structural priors for accurate 3D reconstructions. BIOMEDICAL OPTICS EXPRESS 2023; 14:1041-1053. [PMID: 36950248 PMCID: PMC10026582 DOI: 10.1364/boe.480091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2022] [Revised: 01/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/24/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Widefield illumination and detection strategies leveraging structured light have enabled fast and robust probing of tissue properties over large surface areas and volumes. However, when applied to diffuse optical tomography (DOT) applications, they still require a time-consuming and expert-centric solving of an ill-posed inverse problem. Deep learning (DL) models have been recently proposed to facilitate this challenging step. Herein, we expand on a previously reported deep neural network (DNN) -based architecture (modified AUTOMAP - ModAM) for accurate and fast reconstructions of the absorption coefficient in 3D DOT based on a structured light illumination and detection scheme. Furthermore, we evaluate the improved performances when incorporating a micro-CT structural prior in the DNN-based workflow, named Z-AUTOMAP. This Z-AUTOMAP significantly improves the widefield imaging process's spatial resolution, especially in the transverse direction. The reported DL-based strategies are validated both in silico and in experimental phantom studies using spectral micro-CT priors. Overall, this is the first successful demonstration of micro-CT and DOT fusion using deep learning, greatly enhancing the prospect of rapid data-integration strategies, often demanded in challenging pre-clinical scenarios.
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Kim H, Lee H, Lee S, Choi YW, Choi YJ, Kim KH, Seo W, Shin CW, Cho S. A feasibility study on deep-neural-network-based dose-neutral dual-energy digital breast tomosynthesis. Med Phys 2023; 50:791-807. [PMID: 36273397 DOI: 10.1002/mp.16071] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2021] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Diagnostic performance based on x-ray breast imaging is subject to breast density. Although digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) is reported to outperform conventional mammography in denser breasts, mass detection and malignancy characterization are often considered challenging yet. PURPOSE As an improved diagnostic solution to the dense breast cases, we propose a dual-energy DBT imaging technique that enables breast compositional imaging at comparable scanning time and patient dose compared to the conventional single-energy DBT. METHODS The proposed dual-energy DBT acquires projection data by alternating two different energy spectra. Then, we synthesize unmeasured projection data using a deep neural network that exploits the measured projection data and adjacent projection data obtained under the other x-ray energy spectrum. For material decomposition, we estimate partial path lengths of an x-ray through water, lipid, and protein from the measured and the synthesized projection data with the object thickness information. After material decomposition in the projection domain, we reconstruct material-selective DBT images. The deep neural network is trained with the numerical breast phantoms. A pork meat phantom is scanned with a prototype dual-energy DBT system to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed imaging method. RESULTS The developed deep neural network successfully synthesized missing projections. Material-selective images reconstructed from the synthesized data present comparable compositional contrast of the cancerous masses compared with those from the fully measured data. CONCLUSIONS The proposed dual-energy DBT scheme is expected to substantially contribute to enhancing mass malignancy detection accuracy particularly in dense breasts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyeongseok Kim
- KAIST Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea
| | - Hoyeon Lee
- Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Seoyoung Lee
- Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea
| | - Young-Wook Choi
- Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), Ansan, South Korea
| | - Young Jin Choi
- Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), Ansan, South Korea
| | - Kee Hyun Kim
- Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), Ansan, South Korea
| | | | | | - Seungryong Cho
- KAIST Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea.,Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea.,KAIST Institute for Health Science and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea.,KAIST Institute for IT Convergence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea
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Balasubramaniam GM, Arnon S. Regression-based neural network for improving image reconstruction in diffuse optical tomography. BIOMEDICAL OPTICS EXPRESS 2022; 13:2006-2017. [PMID: 35519246 PMCID: PMC9045936 DOI: 10.1364/boe.449448] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2021] [Revised: 02/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/09/2022] [Indexed: 05/02/2023]
Abstract
Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a non-invasive imaging technique utilizing multi-scattered light at visible and infrared wavelengths to detect anomalies in tissues. However, the DOT image reconstruction is based on solving the inverse problem, which requires massive calculations and time. In this article, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a simple, regression-based cascaded feed-forward deep learning neural network is derived to solve the inverse problem of DOT in compressed breast geometry. The predicted data is subsequently utilized to visualize the breast tissues and their anomalies. The dataset in this study is created using a Monte-Carlo algorithm, which simulates the light propagation in the compressed breast placed inside a parallel plate source-detector geometry (forward process). The simulated DL-DOT system's performance is evaluated using the Pearson correlation coefficient (R) and the Mean squared error (MSE) metrics. Although a comparatively smaller dataset (50 nos.) is used, our simulation results show that the developed feed-forward network algorithm to solve the inverse problem delivers an increment of ∼30% over the analytical solution approach, in terms of R. Furthermore, the proposed network's MSE outperforms that of the analytical solution's MSE by a large margin revealing the robustness of the network and the adaptability of the system for potential applications in medical settings.
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Lee S, Kim H, Lee H, Cho S. Deep-learning-based projection-domain breast thickness estimation for shape-prior iterative image reconstruction in digital breast tomosynthesis. Med Phys 2022; 49:3670-3682. [PMID: 35297075 DOI: 10.1002/mp.15612] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2021] [Revised: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 03/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) is a technique that can overcome the shortcomings of conventional X-ray mammography and can be effective for the early screening of breast cancer. The compression of the breast is essential during the DBT imaging. However, since the periphery of the breast cannot be compressed to a constant value, nonuniformity of thickness and in-plane shape variation happen. These cause inconvenience in diagnosis, scatter correction, and breast density estimation. PURPOSE In this study, we propose a deep-learning-based methodology for projection-domain breast thickness estimation and demonstrate a shape-prior iterative DBT image reconstruction. METHODS We prepared the Euclidean distance map, the thickness map, and the thickness corrected image of the simulated breast projections for thickness and shape estimation. Each pixel of the Euclidean distance map denotes a distance to the closest skin-line. The thickness map is defined as a conceptual projection of ideal breast support that differentiates the inner and outer regions of the breast phantom. The thickness projection map thus represents the x-ray path lengths of a homogeneous breast phantom. We generated the thickness corrected image by dividing the projection image by the thickness map in a pixel-wise manner. We developed a convolutional neural network for thickness estimation and correction. The network utilizes a projection image and a Euclidean distance image together as a dual input. An estimated breast thickness map is then used for constructing the breast shape mask by use of the discrete algebraic reconstruction technique (DART). RESULTS The proposed network effectively corrected the breast thickness in various simulation situations. Low normalized root-mean-squared error (NRMSE; 1.976%) and high structural similarity (SSIM; 99.997%) indicated a good agreement between the network-generated thickness corrected image and the ground-truth image. Compared to the existing methods and simple single-input network, the proposed method showed outperformance in breast thickness estimation and accordingly in breast shape recovery for various numerical phantoms without provoking any significant artifact. We have demonstrated that the uniformity of voxel value has improved by the inclusion of a shape-prior for the iterative DBT reconstruction. CONCLUSIONS We presented a novel deep-learning-based breast thickness correction and a shape reconstruction method. This approach to estimating the true thickness map and the shape of the breast undergoing compression can benefit various fields such as improvement of diagnostic breast images, scatter correction, material decomposition, and breast density estimation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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Affiliation(s)
- Seoyoung Lee
- Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Korea
| | - Hyeongseok Kim
- KAIST Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Korea
| | - Hoyeon Lee
- Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 02114, USA
| | - Seungryong Cho
- Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Korea.,KAIST Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Korea.,KAIST Institutes for IT Convergence and Health Science and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Korea
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Wang X, Hu R, Wang Y, Yan Q, Wang Y, Kang F, Zhu S. A Data Self-Calibration Method Based on High-Density Parallel Plate Diffuse Optical Tomography for Breast Cancer Imaging. Front Oncol 2021; 11:786289. [PMID: 34993144 PMCID: PMC8724432 DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2021.786289] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2021] [Accepted: 12/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
When performing the diffuse optical tomography (DOT) of the breast, the mismatch between the forward model and the experimental conditions will significantly hinder the reconstruction accuracy. Therefore, the reference measurement is commonly used to calibrate the measured data before the reconstruction. However, it is complicated to customize corresponding reference phantoms based on the breast shape and background optical parameters of different subjects in clinical trials. Furthermore, although high-density (HD) DOT configuration has been proven to improve imaging quality, a large number of source-detector (SD) pairs also increase the difficulty of multi-channel correction. To enhance the applicability of the breast DOT, a data self-calibration method based on an HD parallel-plate DOT system is proposed in this paper to replace the conventional relative measurement on a reference phantom. The reference predicted data can be constructed directly from the measurement data with the support of the HD-DOT system, which has nearly a hundred sets of measurements at each SD distance. The proposed scheme has been validated by Monte Carlo (MC) simulation, breast-size phantom experiments, and clinical trials, exhibiting the feasibility in ensuring the quality of the DOT reconstruction while effectively reducing the complexity associated with relative measurements on reference phantoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xin Wang
- School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
- Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging of Ministry of Education, Xi’an, China
| | - Rui Hu
- School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
- Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging of Ministry of Education, Xi’an, China
| | - Yirong Wang
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China
| | - Qiang Yan
- School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
- Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging of Ministry of Education, Xi’an, China
| | - Yihan Wang
- School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
- Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging of Ministry of Education, Xi’an, China
- *Correspondence: Yihan Wang, ; Shouping Zhu,
| | - Fei Kang
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China
| | - Shouping Zhu
- School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
- Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging of Ministry of Education, Xi’an, China
- *Correspondence: Yihan Wang, ; Shouping Zhu,
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