Venous tree separation in the liver: graph partitioning using a non-ising model

  • Authors:
  • Thomas O'Donnell;Jens N. Kaftan;Andreas Schuh;Christian Tietjen;Grzegorz Soza;Til Aach

  • Affiliations:
  • Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ;Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ and Institute of Imaging and Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany and Siemens Healthcare Sector, Computed Tomography, Forchheim, Germa ...;Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ and Section of Biomedical Image Analysis, Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA;Siemens Healthcare Sector, Computed Tomography, Forchheim, Germany;Siemens Healthcare Sector, Computed Tomography, Forchheim, Germany;Institute of Imaging and Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

  • Venue:
  • IPMI'11 Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on Information processing in medical imaging
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Entangled tree-like vascular systems are commonly found in the body (e.g., in the peripheries and lungs). Separation of these systems in medical images may be formulated as a graph partitioning problem given an imperfect segmentation and specification of the tree roots. In this work, we show that the ubiquitous Ising-model approaches (e.g., Graph Cuts, Random Walker) are not appropriate for tackling this problem and propose a novel method based on recursive minimal paths for doing so. To motivate our method, we focus on the intertwined portal and hepatic venous systems in the liver. Separation of these systems is critical for liver intervention planning, in particular when resection is involved. We apply our method to 34 clinical datasets, each containing well over a hundred vessel branches, demonstrating its effectiveness.