Automatic liver vessel segmentation using 3D region growing and hybrid active contour model

• Published in: Computers in biology and medicine Vol. 97; pp. 63 - 73
• Main Authors: Zeng, Ye-zhan, Liao, Sheng-hui, Tang, Ping, Zhao, Yu-qian, Liao, Miao, Chen, Yan, Liang, Yi-xiong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2018; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: 3D region growing; Algorithms; Angiography; Bi-Gaussian filter; Blood vessels; Boundaries; Cluster analysis; Clustering; Computed tomography; Computed Tomography Angiography - methods; Contours; Hepatic Artery - diagnostic imaging; Hepatic Veins - diagnostic imaging; Humans; Hybrid active contour model; Image processing; Image segmentation; Imaging, Three-Dimensional - methods; Internal Medicine; Liver; Liver - blood supply; Liver - diagnostic imaging; Liver vessel segmentation; Medical imaging; Methods; Noise; Other; Shape; Vector quantization; China; 3D region growing; Bi-Gaussian filter; Hybrid active contour model; Liver vessel segmentation
• ISSN: 0010-4825; 1879-0534; 1879-0534
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2018.04.014

This paper proposes a new automatic method for liver vessel segmentation by exploiting intensity and shape constraints of 3D vessels. The core of the proposed method is to apply two different strategies: 3D region growing facilitated by bi-Gaussian filter for thin vessel segmentation, and hybrid active contour model combined with K-means clustering for thick vessel segmentation. They are then integrated to generate final segmentation results. The proposed method is validated on abdominal computed tomography angiography (CTA) images, and obtains an average accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, Dice, Jaccard, and RMSD of 98.2%, 68.3%, 99.2%, 73.0%, 66.1%, and 2.56 mm, respectively. Experimental results show that our method is capable of segmenting complex liver vessels with more continuous and complete thin vessel details, and outperforms several existing 3D vessel segmentation algorithms. •A novel automatic thin-vessel segmentation method is proposed.•A hybrid active contour model is developed to segment thick vessels.•A new incorporated 3D liver-vessel segmentation method is proposed.•Our method outperforms some existing methods on 3D vessel segmentation.