Experimental Examination of Conventional, Semi-Automatic, and Automatic Volumetry Tools for Segmentation of Pulmonary Nodules in a Phantom Study

Autor: Julian Hlouschek, Britta König, Denise Bos, Alina Santiago, Sebastian Zensen, Johannes Haubold, Christoph Pöttgen, Andreas Herz, Marcel Opitz, Axel Wetter, Maja Guberina, Martin Stuschke, Waldemar Zylka, Hilmar Kühl, Nika Guberina
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Diagnostics, Vol 14, Iss 1, p 28 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2075-4418
DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics14010028
Popis: The aim of this study is to examine the precision of semi-automatic, conventional and automatic volumetry tools for pulmonary nodules in chest CT with phantom N1 LUNGMAN. The phantom is a life-size anatomical chest model with pulmonary nodules representing solid and subsolid metastases. Gross tumor volumes (GTVis) were contoured using various approaches: manually (0); as a means of semi-automated, conventional contouring with (I) adaptive-brush function; (II) flood-fill function; and (III) image-thresholding function. Furthermore, a deep-learning algorithm for automatic contouring was applied (IV). An intermodality comparison of the above-mentioned strategies for contouring GTVis was performed. For the mean GTVref (standard deviation (SD)), the interquartile range (IQR)) was 0.68 mL (0.33; 0.34–1.1). GTV segmentation was distributed as follows: (I) 0.61 mL (0.27; 0.36–0.92); (II) 0.41 mL (0.28; 0.23–0.63); (III) 0.65 mL (0.35; 0.32–0.90); and (IV) 0.61 mL (0.29; 0.33–0.95). GTVref was found to be significantly correlated with GTVis (I) p < 0.001, r = 0.989 (III) p = 0.001, r = 0.916, and (IV) p < 0.001, r = 0.986, but not with (II) p = 0.091, r = 0.595. The Sørensen–Dice indices for the semi-automatic tools were 0.74 (I), 0.57 (II) and 0.71 (III). For the semi-automatic, conventional segmentation tools evaluated, the adaptive-brush function (I) performed closest to the reference standard (0). The automatic deep learning tool (IV) showed high performance for auto-segmentation and was close to the reference standard. For high precision radiation therapy, visual control, and, where necessary, manual correction, are mandatory for all evaluated tools.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals