Title
Computer-aided detection scheme for sentinel lymph nodes in lymphoscintigrams using symmetrical property around mapped injection point.
Abstract
It is difficult to detect sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) around an injection point of radiopharmaceuticals mapped in lymphoscintigrams. The purpose of this study was to develop a computer-aided detection (CAD) scheme for SLNs by a subtraction technique using the symmetrical property in the mapped injection point. Our database consisted of 78 lymphoscintigrams with 86 SLNs. In our CAD scheme, the mapped injection point of radiopharmaceuticals was first segmented from the lymphoscintigram using a gray-level thresholding technique. Lymphoscintigram was then divided into four regions by vertical and horizontal straight lines through the center of the segmented injection point. One of the four divided regions was defined as the target region. The correlation coefficients based on pixel values were calculated between the target region and each of the other three regions. The region with the highest correlation coefficient among three regions was selected as the similar region to the target region. The values of pixels on the target region were subtracted by the values of the corresponding pixels on the similar region. This procedure was repeated until every divided region had been used as target region. SLNs were segmented by applying a gray-level thresholding technique to the subtracted image. With our CAD scheme, sensitivity and the number of false positives were 95.3% (82/86) and 2.51 per image, respectively. Our CAD scheme achieved a high level of detection accuracy, and would have a great potential in assisting physicians to detect SLNs in lymphoscintigrams.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1007/s10278-011-9396-8
J. Digital Imaging
Keywords
Field
DocType
Computer-aided detection, Lymphoscintigram, Sentinel lymph node, Image subtraction
CAD,Computer vision,Correlation coefficient,Computer science,Sentinel lymph node,Image subtraction,Pixel,Artificial intelligence,Thresholding,Subtraction,Divided regions
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
25
1
1618-727X
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
1
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ryohei Nakayama1144.80
Akiyoshi Hizukuri252.16
Koji Yamamoto352.09
Nobuo Nakako420.78
Naoki Nagasawa511.21
Kan Takeda600.68