Lung tumor segmentation using electric flow lines for graph cuts

Abstract

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death. A common treatment is radiotherapy where the lung tumors are irradiated with ionizing radiation. The treatment is typically fractionated, i.e. spread out over time, allowing healthy tissue to recover between treatments and allowing tumor cells to be hit in their most sensitive phase. Changes in tumors over the course of treatment allows for an adaptation of the radiotherapy plan based on 3D computer tomography imaging. This paper introduces a method for segmentation of lung tumors on consecutive computed tomography images. These images are normally only used for correction of movements. The method uses graphs based on electric flow lines. The method offers several advantages when trying to replicate manual segmentations. The method gave a dice coefficient of 0.85 and performed better than level set methods and deformable registration. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.