TY - GEN
T1 - Towards segmentation of the thymus in fat and water parametric MR images
AU - Makrogiannis, Sokratis
AU - Ramachandran, Ramona
AU - Fishbein, Kenneth W.
AU - Kapogiannis, Dimitrios
AU - Spencer, Richard G.
AU - Chia, Chee W.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The thymus, an organ responsible for the development, selection, and maintenance of the peripheral T-cell population, is an important regulator of the immune system. Despite its physiological significance, it has received little attention in the medical image analysis literature. In practice, the anatomical location and variable shape of this gland pose challenges both in the image acquisition and analysis processes. We present an automated method for segmenting the thymus from water and fat parametric MR images that permits further analysis of volumetrics and tissue characterization. We compute fat ratio and water ratio parametric images and introduce the use of a stochastic edge detector that is embedded in a geometric variational segmentation model. Validation experiments of the proposed algorithm against manual delineations of the thymus indicate the applicability of our approach.
AB - The thymus, an organ responsible for the development, selection, and maintenance of the peripheral T-cell population, is an important regulator of the immune system. Despite its physiological significance, it has received little attention in the medical image analysis literature. In practice, the anatomical location and variable shape of this gland pose challenges both in the image acquisition and analysis processes. We present an automated method for segmenting the thymus from water and fat parametric MR images that permits further analysis of volumetrics and tissue characterization. We compute fat ratio and water ratio parametric images and introduce the use of a stochastic edge detector that is embedded in a geometric variational segmentation model. Validation experiments of the proposed algorithm against manual delineations of the thymus indicate the applicability of our approach.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84861708754&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84861708754&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6091992
DO - 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6091992
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 22256216
AN - SCOPUS:84861708754
SN - 9781424441211
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS
SP - 8078
EP - 8081
BT - 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2011
T2 - 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2011
Y2 - 30 August 2011 through 3 September 2011
ER -