Method and system for polyp segmentation for 3D computed tomography colonography

摘要

A method and system for polyp segmentation in computed tomography colonogrphy (CTC) volumes is disclosed. The polyp segmentation method utilizes a three-staged probabilistic binary classification approach for automatically segmenting polyp voxels from surrounding tissue in CTC volumes. Based on an input initial polyp position, a polyp tip is detected in a CTC volume using a trained 3D point detector. A local polar coordinate system is then fit to the colon surface in the CTC volume with the origin at the detected polyp tip. Polyp interior voxels and polyp exterior voxels are detected along each axis of the local polar coordinate system using a trained 3D box. A boundary voxel is detected on each axis of the local polar coordinate system based on the detected polyp interior voxels and polyp exterior voxels by boosted 1D curve parsing using a trained classifier. This results in a segmented polyp boundary.