Auto-segmentation method for lung parenchyma of CT images / 中国医学影像技术

ABSTRACT

Objective To establish a new automatic lung segmentation method in order to deal with the omission of pleural nodules and pulmonary vessels. Methods Lung parenchyma were extracted from chest CT images with the inversed operation of 2D region growing and connected area classification, then the contours and locating the contour points were traced with scan line searching. Finally, the parameters of lung contour points were analyzed to locate the contours distorted by nodules, and curve spline was used to correct distorted contours. Results The experimental results of many sets of CT images verified that the technique proposed was effective. The comparison with other contour correction algorithm verified that line searching contour correction was superior. Conclusion The proposed algorithm includes tumors in the segment results, and confirms the integrality, veracity, real-time quality of this auto-segmentation method.