1. A fuzzy clustering based color-coded diagram for effective illustration of blood perfusion parameters in contrast-enhanced ultrasound videos.
- Author
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Zhuang Z, Fan G, Yuan Y, Joseph Raj AN, and Qiu S
- Subjects
- Algorithms, Cluster Analysis, Contrast Media, Humans, Neoplasms diagnostic imaging, Color, Fuzzy Logic, Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted methods, Perfusion, Ultrasonography
- Abstract
Background and Objective: Early identification and diagnosis of tumors are of great significance to improve the survival rate of patients. Amongst other techniques, contrast-enhanced ultrasound is an important means to help doctors diagnose tumors. Due to the advantages of high efficiency, accuracy and objectivity, more and more computer-aided methods are used in medical diagnosis. Here we propose, a color-coded diagram based on quantitative blood perfusion parameters for contrast-enhanced ultrasound video. The method realizes the static description of the dynamic blood perfusion process in contrast-enhanced ultrasound videos and reveal the blood perfusion characteristics of all regions of the tissue providing assistance to the doctors in their clinical diagnosis., Methods: For effective illustration of the blood perfusion through tissues, we propose (a) an improved block matching algorithm to eliminate the image distortions caused by breathing; (b) compute the time-grayscale intensity curve for each pixel to obtain four different quantitative blood perfusion parameters; and finally (c) employ the fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm to cluster the blood perfusion parameters, where each parameter is associated with a particular color. Thus based on the correspondence between the pixel and the blood perfusion parameters, all the pixels are color-coded to obtain the color-coded diagram., Results: To the best of our knowledge, the proposed technique is one-of-its-kind to color code the contrast-enhanced ultrasound videos using blood perfusion parameters in order to understand the hemodynamic characteristics of the benign and malignant lesion. In our experiments, various contrast-enhanced ultrasound videos corresponding to several real-world cases were color-coded and the results of the experiments illustrated that the proposed color-coded diagrams are consistent with the diagnosis presented by the physicians., Conclusions: The experimental results suggested that the proposed method can comprehensively describe the blood perfusion characteristics of tissues during the angiography process thereby effectively assisting the doctors in diagnosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that there are not competing interests., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)
- Published
- 2020
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