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 automated segmentation


Fully Automated Segmentation of Fiber Bundles in Anatomic Tracing Data

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Anatomic tracer studies are critical for validating and improving diffusion MRI (dMRI) tractography. However, large-scale analysis of data from such studies is hampered by the labor-intensive process of annotating fiber bundles manually on histological slides. Existing automated methods often miss sparse bundles or require complex post-processing across consecutive sections, limiting their flexibility and generalizability. We present a streamlined, fully automated framework for fiber bundle segmentation in macaque tracer data, based on a U-Net architecture with large patch sizes, foreground aware sampling, and semi-supervised pre-training. Our approach eliminates common errors such as mislabeling terminals as bundles, improves detection of sparse bundles by over 20% and reduces the False Discovery Rate (FDR) by 40% compared to the state-of-the-art, all while enabling analysis of standalone slices. This new framework will facilitate the automated analysis of anatomic tracing data at a large scale, generating more ground-truth data that can be used to validate and optimize dMRI tractography methods.


Multi-Phase Automated Segmentation of Dental Structures in CBCT Using a Lightweight Auto3DSeg and SegResNet Implementation

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) has become an invaluable imaging modality in dentistry, enabling 3D visualization of teeth and surrounding structures for diagnosis and treatment planning. Automated segmentation of dental structures in CBCT can efficiently assist in identifying pathology (e.g., pulpal or periapical lesions) and facilitate radiation therapy planning in head and neck cancer patients. We describe the DLaBella29 team's approach for the MICCAI 2025 ToothFairy3 Challenge, which involves a deep learning pipeline for multi-class tooth segmentation. We utilized the MONAI Auto3DSeg framework with a 3D SegResNet architecture, trained on a subset of the ToothFairy3 dataset (63 CBCT scans) with 5-fold cross-validation. Key preprocessing steps included image resampling to 0.6 mm isotropic resolution and intensity clipping. We applied an ensemble fusion using Multi-Label STAPLE on the 5-fold predictions to infer a Phase 1 segmentation and then conducted tight cropping around the easily segmented Phase 1 mandible to perform Phase 2 segmentation on the smaller nerve structures. Our method achieved an average Dice of 0.87 on the ToothFairy3 challenge out-of-sample validation set. This paper details the clinical context, data preparation, model development, results of our approach, and discusses the relevance of automated dental segmentation for improving patient care in radiation oncology.


Attention-Enhanced U-Net for Accurate Segmentation of COVID-19 Infected Lung Regions in CT Scans

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Automated Segmentation of COVID - 19 Infected Lung Regions 2 Abstract In this study, the focus is on developing a robust methodology for automatic segmentation of infected lung regions in COVID - 19 CT scans utilizing advanced CNNs. The proposed model is based on a modified U - Net architecture w ith attention mechanisms, data augmentation, and postprocessing techniques, achieving high segmentation accuracy and boundary precision. The dataset was sourced from publicly available repositories, processed, and augmented to increase its diversity and ge neralizability. The approach was evaluated quantitatively, resulting in a Dice coefficient of 0.8658 and mean IoU of 0.8316. The proposed model is compared to existing methods through comparative analysis, clearly demonstrating its superiority in handling data variability and achieving precise segmentation.


Automated Segmentation of Ischemic Stroke Lesions in Non-Contrast Computed Tomography Images for Enhanced Treatment and Prognosis

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and is increasingly prevalent in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Timely interventions can significantly influence stroke survivability and the quality of life after treatment. However, the standard and most widely available imaging method for confirming strokes and their sub-types, the NCCT, is more challenging and time-consuming to employ in cases of ischemic stroke. For this reason, we developed an automated method for ischemic stroke lesion segmentation in NCCTs using the nnU-Net frame work, aimed at enhancing early treatment and improving the prognosis of ischemic stroke patients. We achieved Dice scores of 0.596 and Intersection over Union (IoU) scores of 0.501 on the sampled dataset. After adjusting for outliers, these scores improved to 0.752 for the Dice score and 0.643 for the IoU. Proper delineation of the region of infarction can help clinicians better assess the potential impact of the infarction, and guide treatment procedures.


On the Automated Segmentation of Epicardial and Mediastinal Cardiac Adipose Tissues Using Classification Algorithms

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The quantification of fat depots on the surroundings of the heart is an accurate procedure for evaluating health risk factors correlated with several diseases. However, this type of evaluation is not widely employed in clinical practice due to the required human workload. This work proposes a novel technique for the automatic segmentation of cardiac fat pads. The technique is based on applying classification algorithms to the segmentation of cardiac CT images. Furthermore, we extensively evaluate the performance of several algorithms on this task and discuss which provided better predictive models. Experimental results have shown that the mean accuracy for the classification of epicardial and mediastinal fats has been 98.4% with a mean true positive rate of 96.2%. On average, the Dice similarity index, regarding the segmented patients and the ground truth, was equal to 96.8%. Therfore, our technique has achieved the most accurate results for the automatic segmentation of cardiac fats, to date.


Automated Segmentation and Volume Measurement of Intracranial Carotid Artery Calcification on Noncontrast CT

#artificialintelligence

"Just Accepted" papers have undergone full peer review and have been accepted for publication in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence. This article will undergo copyediting, layout, and proof review before it is published in its final version. Please note that during production of the final copyedited article, errors may be discovered which could affect the content. To develop and evaluate a fully-automated deep-learning-based method for assessment of intracranial carotid artery calcification (ICAC). This was a secondary analysis of prospectively collected data from the Rotterdam study (2003–2006) to develop and validate a deep-learning-based method for automated ICAC delineation and volume measurement.


Deep Learning–based Automated Segmentation of Left Ventricular Trabeculations and Myocardium on Cardiac MR Images: A Feasibility Study

#artificialintelligence

To develop and evaluate a complete deep learning pipeline that allows fully automated end-diastolic left ventricle (LV) cardiac MRI segmentation, including trabeculations and automatic quality control of the predicted segmentation. This multicenter retrospective study includes training, validation, and testing datasets of 272, 27, and 150 cardiac MR images, respectively, collected between 2012 and 2018. The reference standard was the manual segmentation of four LV anatomic structures performed on end-diastolic short-axis cine cardiac MRI: LV trabeculations, LV myocardium, LV papillary muscles, and the LV blood cavity. The automatic pipeline was composed of five steps with a DenseNet architecture. Intraobserver agreement, interobserver agreement, and interaction time were recorded.


Automated Segmentation of Abdominal Skeletal Muscle on Pediatric CT Scans Using Deep Learning

#artificialintelligence

To automate skeletal muscle segmentation in a pediatric population using convolutional neural networks that identify and segment the L3 level at CT. In this retrospective study, two sets of U-Net–based models were developed to identify the L3 level in the sagittal plane and segment the skeletal muscle from the corresponding axial image. For model development, 370 patients (sampled uniformly across age group from 0 to 18 years and including both sexes) were selected between January 2009 and January 2019, and ground truth L3 location and skeletal muscle segmentation were manually defined. Twenty percent (74 of 370) of the examinations were reserved for testing the L3 locator and muscle segmentation, while the remaining were used for training. For the L3 locator models, maximum intensity projections (MIPs) from a fixed number of central sections of sagittal reformats (either 12 or 18 sections) were used as input with or without transfer learning using an L3 localizer trained on an external dataset (four models total).


Fully Automated Segmentation of Head CT Neuroanatomy Using Deep Learning

#artificialintelligence

To develop a deep learning model that segments intracranial structures on head CT scans. In this retrospective study, a primary dataset containing 62 normal noncontrast head CT scans from 62 patients (mean age, 73 years; age range, 27–95 years) acquired between August and December 2018 was used for model development. Eleven intracranial structures were manually annotated on the axial oblique series. The dataset was split into 40 scans for training, 10 for validation, and 12 for testing. After initial training, eight model configurations were evaluated on the validation dataset and the highest performing model was evaluated on the test dataset.