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Multinuclear MR and multilevel data processing: an insight into morphologic assessment of in vivo knee articular cartilage

Hani AF, Kumar D, Malik AS, Walter N, Razak R, Kiflie A

Acad Radiol, 2015 Jan;22(1):93-104.
PMID: 25481518 DOI: 10.1016/j.acra.2014.08.008

Quantitative assessment of knee articular cartilage (AC) morphology using magnetic resonance (MR) imaging requires an accurate segmentation and 3D reconstruction. However, automatic AC segmentation and 3D reconstruction from hydrogen-based MR images alone is challenging because of inhomogeneous intensities, shape irregularity, and low contrast existing in the cartilage region. Thus, the objective of this research was to provide an insight into morphologic assessment of AC using multilevel data processing of multinuclear ((23)Na and (1)H) MR knee images.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods
Benefits of 3D rotational DSA compared with 2D DSA in the evaluation of intracranial aneurysm

Wong SC, Nawawi O, Ramli N, Abd Kadir KA

Acad Radiol, 2012 Jun;19(6):701-7.
PMID: 22578227 DOI: 10.1016/j.acra.2012.02.012

The aim of this study was to compare conventional two-dimensional (2D) digital subtraction angiography (DSA) with three-dimensional (3D) rotational DSA in the investigation of intracranial aneurysm in terms of detection, size measurement, neck diameter, neck delineation, and relationship with surrounding vessels. A further aim was to compare radiation dose, contrast volume, and procedural time between the two protocols.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/methods
Enhanced optical flow field of left ventricular motion using quasi-Gaussian DCT filter

Riyadi S, Mustafa MM, Hussain A, Maskon O, Nor IF

Adv Exp Med Biol, 2011;696:461-9.
PMID: 21431586 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-7046-6_46

Left ventricular motion estimation is very important for diagnosing cardiac abnormality. One of the popular techniques, optical flow technique, promises useful results for motion quantification. However, optical flow technique often failed to provide smooth vector field due to the complexity of cardiac motion and the presence of speckle noise. This chapter proposed a new filtering technique, called quasi-Gaussian discrete cosine transform (QGDCT)-based filter, to enhance the optical flow field for myocardial motion estimation. Even though Gaussian filter and DCT concept have been implemented in other previous researches, this filter introduces a different approach of Gaussian filter model based on high frequency properties of cosine function. The QGDCT is a customized quasi discrete Gaussian filter in which its coefficients are derived from a selected two-dimensional DCT. This filter was implemented before and after the computation of optical flow to reduce the speckle noise and to improve the flow field smoothness, respectively. The algorithm was first validated on synthetic echocardiography image that simulates a contracting myocardium motion. Subsequently, this method was also implemented on clinical echocardiography images. To evaluate the performance of the technique, several quantitative measurements such as magnitude error, angular error, and standard error of measurement are computed and analyzed. The final motion estimation results were in good agreement with the physician manual interpretation.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods
Tooth mineralization stages as a diagnostic tool for assessment of skeletal maturity

Surendran S, Thomas E

Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop, 2014 Jan;145(1):7-14.
PMID: 24373650 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajodo.2013.09.007

The objective of this study was to determine whether dental calcification can be used as a first-level diagnostic tool for assessment of skeletal maturity.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/methods
Profiling the features of pre-segmented healthy liver CT scans: towards fast detection of liver lesions in emergency scenario

Pasha MF, Hong KS, Rajeswari M

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc, 2011;2011:5169-73.
PMID: 22255503 DOI: 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6091280

Automating the detection of lesions in liver CT scans requires a high performance and robust solution. With CT-scan start to become the norm in emergency department, the need for a fast and efficient liver lesions detection method is arising. In this paper, we propose a fast and evolvable method to profile the features of pre-segmented healthy liver and use it to detect the presence of liver lesions in emergency scenario. Our preliminary experiment with the MICCAI 2007 grand challenge datasets shows promising results of a fast training time, ability to evolve the produced healthy liver profiles, and accurate detection of the liver lesions. Lastly, the future work directions are also presented.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/methods
Medical image fusion scheme using complex contourlet transform based on PCA

Al-Azzawi N, Sakim HA, Abdullah AK, Ibrahim H

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc, 2009;2009:5813-6.
PMID: 19965249 DOI: 10.1109/IEMBS.2009.5335180

We present an efficient method for the fusion of medical captured images using different modalities that enhances the original images and combines the complementary information of the various modalities. The contourlet transform has mainly been employed as a fusion technique for images obtained from equal or different modalities. The limitation of directional information of dual-tree complex wavelet (DT-CWT) is rectified in dual-tree complex contourlet transform (DT-CCT) by incorporating directional filter banks (DFB) into the DT-CWT. The DT-CCT produces images with improved contours and textures, while the property of shift invariance is retained. To improve the fused image quality, we propose a new method for fusion rules based on principle component analysis (PCA) which depend on frequency component of DT-CCT coefficients (contourlet domain). For low frequency components, PCA method is adopted and for high frequency components, the salient features are picked up based on local energy. The final fusion image is obtained by directly applying inverse dual tree complex contourlet transform (IDT-CCT) to the fused low and high frequency components. The experimental results showed that the proposed method produces fixed image with extensive features on multimodality.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods*
Area assessment of psoriasis lesion for PASI scoring

Ihtatho D, Fadzil MH, Affandi AM, Hussein SH

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc, 2007;2007:3446-9.
PMID: 18002738

Psoriasis is a skin disorder which is caused by genetic fault. There is no cure for psoriasis, however, there are many treatment modalities to help control the disease. To evaluate treatment efficacy, PASI (Psoriasis Area and Severity Index) which is the current gold standard method is used to measure psoriasis severity by evaluating the area, erythema, scaliness and thickness of the plaques. However, the calculation of PASI can be tedious and subjective. In this work, we develop a computer vision method that determines one of the PASI parameter, the lesion area. The method isolates healthy (or healed) skin areas from lesion areas by analyzing the hue and chroma information in the CIE L*a*b* colour space. Centroids of healthy skin and psoriasis in the hue-chroma space are determined from selected sample. Euclidean distance of all pixels from each centroid is calculated. Each pixel is assigned to the class with minimum Euclidean distance. The study involves patients from three different ethnic origins having different skin tones. Results obtained show that the proposed method is comparable to the dermatologist visual approach.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods
Determination of skin repigmentation progression

Nugroho H, Fadzil MH, Yap VV, Norashikin S, Suraiya HH

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc, 2007;2007:3442-5.
PMID: 18002737

In this paper, we describe an image processing scheme to analyze and determine areas of skin that have undergone repigmentation in particular, during the treatment of vitiligo. In vitiligo cases, areas of skin become pale or white due to the lack of skin pigment called melanin. Vitiligo treatment causes skin repigmentation resulting in a normal skin color. However, it is difficult to determine and quantify the amount of repigmentation visually during treatment because the repigmentation progress is slow and moreover changes in skin color can only be discerned over a longer time frame typically 6 months. Here, we develop a digital image analysis scheme that can identify and determine vitiligo skin areas and repigmentation progression on a shorter time period. The technique is based on principal component analysis and independent component analysis which converts the RGB skin image into a skin image that represent skin areas due to melanin and haemoglobin only, followed by segmentation process. Vitiligo skin lesions are identified as skin areas that lack melanin (non-melanin areas). In the initial studies of 4 patients, the method has been able to quantify repigmentation in vitiligo lesion. Hence it is now possible to determine repigmentation progression objectively and treatment efficacy on a shorter time cycle.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods
Body surface area measurement and soft clustering for PASI area assessment

Hani AF, Prakasa E, Nugroho H, Affandi AM, Hussein SH

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc, 2012;2012:4398-401.
PMID: 23366902 DOI: 10.1109/EMBC.2012.6346941

Psoriasis is a common skin disorder with a prevalence of 0.6 - 4.8% around the world. The most common is plaques psoriasis and it appears as red scaling plaques. Psoriasis is incurable but treatable in a long term treatment. Although PASI (Psoriasis Area and Severity Index) scoring is recognised as gold standard for psoriasis assessment, this method is still influenced by inter and intra-rater variation. An imaging and analysis system called α-PASI is developed to perform PASI scoring objectively. Percentage of lesion area to the body surface area is one of PASI parameter. In this paper, enhanced imaging methods are developed to improve the determination of body surface area (BSA) and lesion area. BSA determination method has been validated on medical mannequin. BSA accuracies obtained at four body regions are 97.80% (lower limb), 92.41% (trunk), 87.72% (upper limb), and 83.82% (head). By applying fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm, the membership functions of lesions area for PASI area scoring have been determined. Performance of scoring result has been tested with double assessment by α-PASI area algorithm on body region images from 46 patients. Kappa coefficients for α-PASI system are greater than or equal to 0.72 for all body regions (Head - 0.76, Upper limb - 0.81, Trunk - 0.85, Lower limb - 0.72). The overall kappa coefficient for the α-PASI area is 0.80 that can be categorised as substantial agreement. This shows that the α-PASI area system has a high reliability and can be used in psoriasis area assessment.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods
Evaluating the quality of images produced by soft X-ray units

Bradley DA, Wong CS, Ng KH

Appl Radiat Isot, 2000 9 26;53(4-5):691-7.
PMID: 11003508

For broad-beam soft X-ray sources, assessment of the quality of image produced by such units is made complex by the low penetration capabilities of the radiation. In the present study we have tested the utility of several types of test tool, some of which have been fabricated by us, as part of an effort to evaluate several key image defining parameters. These include the film characteristic, focal-spot size, image resolution and detail detectability. The two sources of X-rays used in present studies were the University of Malaya flash X-ray device (UMFX1) and a more conventional soft X-ray tube (Softex, Tokyo), the latter operating at peak accelerating potentials of 20 kVp. We have established, for thin objects, that both systems produce images of comparable quality and, in particular, objects can be resolved down to better than 45 microm.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/methods*
Fulltext The assessment of accuracy and reproducibility of cephalometric analyses using Computer-Assisted Simulation System for Orthognathic Surgery (CASSOS) software

Tan, Shiuan Lee, Mohd Fadhli Khamis, Albajalan, Osama Bahaa, Norehan Mokhtar

Archives of Orofacial Sciences, 2012;7(2):75-84.
MyJurnal

Cephalometric analyses using computer software have more advantages than manual analyses. However, the software should be evaluated for the accuracy and reproducibility before it can be used. The aims of the present study were: 1) to compare the differences in accuracy and precision between utilizing scanned images and soft copy images with the software 2) to assess the reproducibility of software and manual cephalometric analyses. Fifteen cephalograms were selected randomly from the Record Unit, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia. All films had 10 fiducial points marked and were scanned at 75 dots per inch (dpi) and 300 dpi. Manual and digital measurements were compared to obtain magnification factors. Seven digital x-ray images of a caliper were taken. The mean differences were measured between the fixed caliper measurement and digital measurements. Subsequently, 37 cephalograms were traced manually and digitally with Computer-Assisted Simulation System for Orthognathic Surgery (CASSOS) software to assess its accuracy and reproducibility after applying the obtained magnification factor. Steiner analysis was utilized and T tests were used to evaluate the mean difference. P

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement
Radiologists’ Performance at Reduced Recall Rates in Mammography: A Laboratory Study

Mohd Norsuddin N, Mello-Thoms C, Reed W, Lewis S

Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2019 Feb 26;20(2):537-543.
PMID: 30803217

Rationale and objectives: Target recall rates are often used as a performance indicator in mammography screening
programs with the intention of reducing false positive decisions, over diagnosis and anxiety for participants. However,
the relationship between target recall rates and cancer detection is unclear, especially when readers are directed to
adhere to a predetermined rate. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of setting different recall rates on
radiologist’s performance. Materials and Methods: Institutional ethics approval was granted and informed consent
was obtained from each participating radiologist. Five experienced breast imaging radiologists read a single test set
of 200 mammographic cases (20 abnormal and 180 normal). The radiologists were asked to identify each case that
they required to be recalled in three different recall conditions; free recall, 15% and 10% and mark the location of any
suspicious lesions. Results: Wide variability in recall rates was observed when reading at free recall, ranging from
18.5% to 34.0%. Readers demonstrated significantly reduced performance when reading at prescribed recall rates,
with lower sensitivity (H=12.891, P=0.002), case location sensitivity (H=12.512, P=0.002) and ROC AUC (H=11.601,
P=0.003) albeit with an increased specificity (H=12.704, P=0.002). However, no significant changes were evident in
lesion location sensitivity (H=1.982, P=0.371) and JAFROC FOM (H=1.820, P=0.403). Conclusion: In this laboratory
study, reducing the number of recalled cases to 10% significantly reduced radiologists’ performance with lower detection
sensitivity, although a significant improvement in specificity was observed.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/standards*
Patterns of intracranial hemorrhage in petrous temporal bone fracture

Asha'ari ZA, Ahmad R, Rahman J, Yusof RA, Kamarudin N

Auris Nasus Larynx, 2012 Apr;39(2):151-5.
PMID: 21592698 DOI: 10.1016/j.anl.2011.02.010

To study the relationship pattern of intracranial hemorrhage in cases of traumatic petrous temporal bone fracture.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement
Optimal beam quality selection based on contrast-to-noise ratio and mean glandular dose in digital mammography

Aminah M, Ng KH, Abdullah BJ, Jamal N

Australas Phys Eng Sci Med, 2010 Dec;33(4):329-34.
PMID: 20938762 DOI: 10.1007/s13246-010-0035-3

The performance of a digital mammography system (Siemens Mammomat Novation) using different target/filter combinations and tube voltage has been assessed. The objective of this study is to optimize beam quality selection based on contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and mean glandular dose (MGD). Three composition of breast were studied with composition of glandular/adipose of 30/70, 50/50, and 70/30. CNR was measured using 2, 4 and 6 cm-thick simulated breast phantoms with an aluminium sheet of 0.1 mm thickness placed on top of the phantom. Three target/filter combinations, namely molybdenum/molybdenum (Mo/Mo), molybdenum/rhodium (Mo/Rh) and tungsten/rhodium (W/Rh) with various tube voltage and mAs were tested. MGD was measured for each exposure. For 50/50 breast composition, Mo/Rh combination with tube voltage 26 kVp is optimal for 2 cm-thick breast. W/Rh combination with tube voltage 27 and 28 kVp are optimal for 4 and 6 cm-thick breast, respectively. For both 30/70 and 70/30 breast composition, W/Rh combination is optimal with tube voltage 25, 26 and 27 kVp, respectively. From our study it was shown that there are potential of dose reduction up to 11% for a set CNR of 3.0 by using beam quality other than that are determined by AEC selection. Under the constraint of lowest MGD, for a particular breast composition, calcification detection is optimized by using a softer X-ray beam for thin breast and harder X-ray beam for thick breast. These experimental results also indicate that for breast with high fibroglandular tissues (70/30), the use of higher beam quality does not always increase calcification detection due to additional structured noise caused by the fibroglandular tissues itself.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/methods*
The characteristics of Fuji IP Cassette Type PII and application for radiation oncology quality assurance tests and portal imaging

Soh HS, Ung NM, Ng KH

Australas Phys Eng Sci Med, 2008 Jun;31(2):146-50.
PMID: 18697706

The advancement of digital imaging has prompted more medical institutions to go filmless. The computed radiography (CR) system is becoming an important tool not only in diagnostic imaging, but also in radiation oncology. A new CR system that was specially designed for the use in radiation oncology, Fuji IP cassette type PII has been introduced to the market in the middle of year 2006. This project aimed to study some basic physical characteristics of this new type of cassette and explore its application for performing quality assurance (QA) tests and portal imaging in radiotherapy. All the images were read by FCR 5000 Plus reader. The image was found to reach its saturation value of 1023 (due to the image was stored in 10 bits data) by depending on the sensitivity value being adjusted. The uniformity test gave the result of 0.12%. The cassette was used to perform the QA tests which were previously performed using film. All the results met the specification as stated in AAPM Task Group 40. The comparison for the portal images of PortalVision contrast-detail phantom showed that the spatial resolution of the images obtained by CR system (Fujifilm Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) were better than the EPID (Varian Medical Systems, Inc., Palo Alto, USA) and film system (Eastman Kodak Co., New York, USA). The IP cassette type PII was found to be suitable as an alternative QA test tool and portal imaging in radiotherapy.

Matched MeSH terms: Radiographic Image Enhancement/instrumentation*
Random walker with improved weighting function for interactive medical image segmentation

Yin LK, Rajeswari M

Biomed Mater Eng, 2014;24(6):3333-41.
PMID: 25227043 DOI: 10.3233/BME-141156

To segment an image using the random walks algorithm; users are often required to initialize the approximate locations of the objects and background in the image. Due to its segmenting model that is mainly reflected by the relationship among the neighborhood pixels and its boundary conditions, random walks algorithm has made itself sensitive to the inputs of the seeds. Instead of considering the relationship between the neighborhood pixels solely, an attempt has been made to modify the weighting function that accounts for the intensity changes between the neighborhood nodes. Local affiliation within the defined neighborhood region of the two nodes is taken into consideration by incorporating an extra penalty term into the weighting function. Besides that, to better segment images, particularly medical images with texture features, GLCM variance is incorporated into the weighting function through kernel density estimation (KDE). The probability density of each pixel belonging to the initialized seeds is estimated and integrated into the weighting function. To test the performance of the proposed weighting model, several medical images that mainly made up of 174-brain tumor images are experimented. These experiments establish that the proposed method produces better segmentation results than the original random walks.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods
Interactive knee cartilage extraction using efficient segmentation software: data from the osteoarthritis initiative

Gan HS, Tan TS, Wong LX, Tham WK, Sayuti KA, Abdul Karim AH, et al.

Biomed Mater Eng, 2014;24(6):3145-57.
PMID: 25227024 DOI: 10.3233/BME-141137

In medical image segmentation, manual segmentation is considered both labor- and time-intensive while automated segmentation often fails to segment anatomically intricate structure accordingly. Interactive segmentation can tackle shortcomings reported by previous segmentation approaches through user intervention. To better reflect user intention, development of suitable editing functions is critical. In this paper, we propose an interactive knee cartilage extraction software that covers three important features: intuitiveness, speed, and convenience. The segmentation is performed using multi-label random walks algorithm. Our segmentation software is simple to use, intuitive to normal and osteoarthritic image segmentation and efficient using only two third of manual segmentation's time. Future works will extend this software to three dimensional segmentation and quantitative analysis.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods*
Fulltext Reduction of Motion Artifacts in the Recovery of Undersampled DCE MR Images Using Data Binning and L+S Decomposition

Bilal M, Anis H, Khan N, Qureshi I, Shah J, Kadir KA

Biomed Res Int, 2019;2019:6139785.
PMID: 31119178 DOI: 10.1155/2019/6139785

Background: Motion is a major source of blurring and ghosting in recovered MR images. It is more challenging in Dynamic Contrast Enhancement (DCE) MRI because motion effects and rapid intensity changes in contrast agent are difficult to distinguish from each other.
Material and Methods: In this study, we have introduced a new technique to reduce the motion artifacts, based on data binning and low rank plus sparse (L+S) reconstruction method for DCE MRI. For Data binning, radial k-space data is acquired continuously using the golden-angle radial sampling pattern and grouped into various motion states or bins. The respiratory signal for binning is extracted directly from radially acquired k-space data. A compressed sensing- (CS-) based L+S matrix decomposition model is then used to reconstruct motion sorted DCE MR images. Undersampled free breathing 3D liver and abdominal DCE MR data sets are used to validate the proposed technique.
Results: The performance of the technique is compared with conventional L+S decomposition qualitatively along with the image sharpness and structural similarity index. Recovered images are visually sharper and have better similarity with reference images.
Conclusion: L+S decomposition provides improved MR images with data binning as preprocessing step in free breathing scenario. Data binning resolves the respiratory motion by dividing different respiratory positions in multiple bins. It also differentiates the respiratory motion and contrast agent (CA) variations. MR images recovered for each bin are better as compared to the method without data binning.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods*
Fulltext Subspace-based technique for speckle noise reduction in ultrasound images

Yahya N, Kamel NS, Malik AS

Biomed Eng Online, 2014;13(1):154.
PMID: 25421914 DOI: 10.1186/1475-925X-13-154

Ultrasound imaging is a very essential technique in medical diagnosis due to its being safe, economical and non-invasive nature. Despite its popularity, the US images, however, are corrupted with speckle noise, which reduces US images qualities, hampering image interpretation and processing stage. Hence, there are many efforts made by researches to formulate various despeckling methods for speckle reduction in US images.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods*
Fulltext Multipurpose contrast enhancement on epiphyseal plates and ossification centers for bone age assessment

Chai HY, Swee TT, Seng GH, Wee LK

Biomed Eng Online, 2013;12:27.
PMID: 23565999 DOI: 10.1186/1475-925X-12-27

The high variations of background luminance, low contrast and excessively enhanced contrast of hand bone radiograph often impede the bone age assessment rating system in evaluating the degree of epiphyseal plates and ossification centers development. The Global Histogram equalization (GHE) has been the most frequently adopted image contrast enhancement technique but the performance is not satisfying. A brightness and detail preserving histogram equalization method with good contrast enhancement effect has been a goal of much recent research in histogram equalization. Nevertheless, producing a well-balanced histogram equalized radiograph in terms of its brightness preservation, detail preservation and contrast enhancement is deemed to be a daunting task.

Matched MeSH terms: Image Enhancement/methods*

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