Automated Delineation of Organ Contours on Medical Images

Advantages

• Automated boundary determination on standard medical images
• Rapid with low computational overhead
• High accuracy and sensitivity
• Tested successfully in a clinical setting for prostate brachytherapy on 3D ultrasound

Technology Details

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American men. Transperineal interstitial permanent prostate brachytherapy (TIPPB) is a minimally invasive, low cost, curative treatment in which 90 to 150 radioactive seeds are implanted into the prostate to irradiate and kill the prostate along with the cancer. In this procedure, oncologists manually outline the prostate volume and then use the volume for treatment planning. Manual segmentation is time consuming and suffers from both inter-observer variability (variability between observers) and intra-observer variability (variability by the same observer). Automating the process improves

(i) the segmentation speed,

(ii) reproducibility and consistency in treatment planning, and

(iii) the potential for intra-operative segmentation which would enable real-time dosimetric and planning updates.

In an effort to improve the dosimetry of brachytherapy when treating men with prostate cancer UBC and British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) researchers have developed PBD™, a novel ultrasound imaging technique that allows for automated boundary determination and segmentation of the prostate. PBD™ is a three dimensional image volume segmentation system designed for fast segmentation for treatment planning.  The results have been shown to be rapid and accurate, providing prostate boundaries that are comparable to those manually delineated by multiple observers. 

Furthermore, the method is not sensitive to the initial boundary points selected by the oncologist, making it robust and objective.  Clinical studies have demonstrated sensitivity greater than 97% and an average accuracy greater than 93%.

PBD™ will serve as a complementary imaging tool that can be combined with any ultrasound machine to improving imaging of the prostate for brachytherapy procedures.  Additionally, other imaging modalities such as CT or the segmentation of other organs such as lungs, kidneys or liver could be possible expansion fields.