Publication Detail Page

A. Kiraly, W. E. Higgins, G. McLennan, E. A. Hoffman, and J. M. Reinhardt. 3D human airway segmentation for clinical virtual bronchoscopy. Acad. Radiol., vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 1153-1168, 2002.

Abstract: Rationale and Objectives. The segmentation of airways from CT images is a critical first step for numerous virtual bronchoscopy (VB) applications. Automatic or semi-automatic methods are necessary since manual segmentation is prohibitively time consuming. The methods must be robust and operate within a reasonable time frame to be useful for clinical VB usage. We present an integrated airway segmentation system and demonstrate its effectiveness on a series of human images. Materials and Methods. Our airway segmentation system is able to draw upon two different segmentation algorithms: 1) an adaptive region growing algorithm; and 2) a new hybrid algorithm that uses both region growing and mathematical morphology. A collection of images from an on-going virtual bronchoscopy study were segmented using both the adaptive region growing and the new hybrid methods. The segmentation volume, branch number estimate, and segmentation quality were determined for each case. Results. The results demonstrate the need for an integrated segmentation system, since no method alone is superior for all clinically relevant cases. The region growing algorithm is the fastest method and provides acceptable segmentations for most VB applications, but the hybrid method provides superior airway edge localization, making it better suited for quantitative applications. In addition, we show that pre-filtering the image data prior to airway segmentation increases the robustness of both the region growing and hybrid methods. Conclusion. The combination of these two algorithms with the pre-filtering options allowed the successful segmentation of all test images. The times required for all segmentations were acceptable and the results were suitable for our VB application needs.

DOI link for this publication

PubMed record for this publication

Citation: BibTeX format Endnote format

Keywords: airways bronchoscopy

Other publications by: A. Kiraly, W. E. Higgins, G. McLennan, E. A. Hoffman, J. M. Reinhardt

Related journal papers:

C. P. Rooney, M. Suter, G. McLennan, M. Donnelley, J. M. Reinhardt, A. Delsing, E. A. Hoffman, and J. Zabner. Laser Fluorescence Bronchoscopy for Detection of Fluorescent Reporter Genes in Airway Epithelia. Gene Therapy, vol. 9, no. 23, pp. 1639-1644, 2002. (details)
M. Suter, J. Tschirren, J. M. Reinhardt, M. Sonka, E. A. Hoffman, W. E. Higgins, and G. McLennan. Evaluation of the human airway with multi-detector X-ray computed tomography and optical imaging. Physiological Measurement, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 837-847, 2004. (details)
M. Suter, J. M. Reinhardt, P. Montague, P. Taft, J. Lee, J. Zabner, and G. McLennan. Bronchoscopic imaging of the pulmonary mucosal vasculature responses to inflammatory mediators. J. Biomed. Optics, vol. 10, no. 3, pg. 34013, 2005. (details)
M. Suter, G. McLennan, J. M. Reinhardt, D. Riker, and E. A. Hoffman. Macro-optical color assessment of the pulmonary airways with subsequent three-dimensional multidetector-x-ray-computed-tomography assisted display. J. Biomed. Optics, vol. 10, no. 5, pg. 51703, 2005. (details)
M. Suter, J. M. Reinhardt, and G. McLennan. Integrated CT/bronchoscopy in the central airways: Preliminary results. Acad. Radiol., vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 786-798, 2008. (details)

Related conference papers:

R. D. Swift, W. E. Higgins, E. A. Hoffman, G. McLennan, and J. M. Reinhardt. Automatic axis generation for 3D virtual-bronchoscopic image assessment. In E. A. Hoffman, ed., Proc. SPIE Conf. Medical Imaging, vol. 3337, pp. 73-84, San Diego, CA, 1998. (details)
A. Kiraly, W. E. Higgins, E. A. Hoffman, G. McLennan, and J. M. Reinhardt. 3D human airway segmentation for virtual bronchoscopy. In A. V. Clough and C.-T. Chen, eds., Proc. SPIE Conf. Medical Imaging, vol. 4683, pp. 16-29, San Diego, CA, 2002. (details)
D. Gopalakrishnan, G. McLennan, M. Donnelley, A. Delsing, M. Suter, D. Flaherty, J. Zabner, E. A. Hoffman, and J. M. Reinhardt. Color bronchoscopic analysis of the human airway tree. In A. V. Clough and C.-T. Chen, eds., Proc. SPIE Conf. Medical Imaging, vol. 4683, pp. 341-351, San Diego, CA, 2002. (details)
M. Suter, J. M. Reinhardt, M. Sonka, W. E. Higgins, E. A. Hoffman, and G. McLennan. Three-dimensional true color topographical analysis of the pulmonary airways. In A. Amini and A. Manduca, eds., Proc. SPIE Conf. Medical Imaging, vol. 5369, pp. 189-198, San Diego, CA, 2004. (details)
A. Kiraly, J. M. Reinhardt, E. A. Hoffman, G. McLennan, and W. E. Higgins. Virtual bronchoscopy for quantitative airway analysis. In A. Amini and A. Manduca, eds., Proc. SPIE Conf. Medical Imaging, vol. 5746, pp. 369-383, San Diego, CA, 2005. (details)

Related theses:

D. Gopalakrishnan. Color analysis of the human airway wall. MS thesis, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 2003. (details)
D. Aykac. Segmentation and analysis of the human airway tree from 3D X-ray CT images. MS thesis, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 2000. (details)
O. Saba. Accurate estimation of airway geometry with tilt angle estimation from 2D HRCT slices. MS thesis, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 2000. (details)
S. V. Bodas. Improved association graph matching of intra-patient airway trees. MS thesis, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 2008. (details)