Classification of Thyroid Nodules in Ultrasound Images Using Direction-Independent Features Extracted by Two-Threshold Binary Decomposition.

In recent years, several computer-aided diagnosis systems emerged for the diagnosis of thyroid gland disorders using ultrasound imaging. These systems based on machine learning algorithms may offer a second opinion to radiologists by evaluating a malignancy risk of thyroid tissue, thus increasing the overall diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound imaging. Although current computer-aided diagnosis systems exhibit promising results, their use in clinical practice is limited.

Patch-based classification of thyroid nodules in ultrasound images using direction independent features extracted by two-threshold binary decomposition.

Ultrasound imaging of the thyroid gland is considered to be the best diagnostic choice for evaluating thyroid nodules in early stages, since it has been marked as cost-effective, non-invasive and risk-free. Computer aided diagnosis (CAD) systems can offer a second opinion to radiologists, thereby increasing the overall diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound imaging. Although current CAD systems exhibit promising results, their use in clinical practice is limited.

Medical image analysis of 3D CT images based on extension of Haralick texture features.

Purpose: A new approach to the segmentation of 3D CT images is proposed in an attempt to provide texture-based segmentation of organs or disease diagnosis. 3D extension of Haralick texture features was studied calculating co-occurrences of all voxels in a small cubic region around the voxel.

Results: For verification, the proposed method was tested on a set of abdominal 3D volumes of patients.

Thyroid autoimmunity occurs more frequently in women with breast cancer compared to women with colorectal cancer and controls but it has no impact on relapse-free and overall survival.

The aim of the study was to compare the prevalence of autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD) in patients with breast and colorectal cancer and controls and to evaluate the impact of AITD on the outcome of patients with breast cancer. Serum levels of TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone), FT4 (free thyroxine), TPOAb (antibodies to thyroid peroxidase), TgAb (antibodies to thyroglobulin), selenium and prolactin were investigated in 210 randomly chosen women (89 with breast cancer and 72 with colorectal cancer after breast or abdominal surgery and 49 controls without oncological diseases). Eighty-four women with breast cancer were followed for a median of 136.

Computational elastography from standard ultrasound image sequences by global trust region optimization.

A new approach is proposed to estimate the spatial distribution of shear modulus of tissues in-vivo. An image sequence is acquired using a standard medical ultrasound scanner while varying the force applied to the handle. The elastic properties are then recovered simultaneously with the inter-frame displacement fields using a computational procedure based on finite element modeling and trust region constrained optimization.

Representing clinical guidelines in UMl: a comparative study.

Clinical guidelines can be represented using models, such as GLIF, specifically designed for healthcare guidelines. This paper demonstrates that they can also be modelled using a mainstream business modelling language such as UML. The paper presents a guideline in GLIF and as UML activity diagrams, and then presents a mapping of GLIF primitives to UML.

Quantitative indicators of sonographic image of thyroid gland and their relation to antithyroid antibodies in Hashimoto's lymphocytic thyroiditis.

Sonography is a widely used non-invasive diagnostic tool and its main advantage is low cost in comparison with other diagnostic methods such as immunological analyses. In this work it is presented the relation between a sonographic image of thyroid gland and an immunological status of the patients with Hashimoto's lymphocytic thyroiditis (chronic inflammation of the thyroid gland). The results, evaluated on a set of 740 B-mode sonographic images from 37 subjects, show that raw values of individual image pixels in sonogram of thyroid gland with presence and without presence of anti-thyroid antibodies are significantly different (means 31.

Relation between quantitative description of ultrasonographic image and clinical and laboratory findings in lymphocytic thyroiditis.

Objective: Relations between measurable properties of B-mode ultrasound images of thyroid gland and clinical and laboratory findings in patients with chronic inflammation of thyroid gland were studied.

Methods: Data from 65 patients with lymphocytic thyroiditis (LT) and 38 control subjects were analysed. Raw values of individual B-mode image pixels and standard co-occurrence second-order texture features were selected as quantitative image features.

Image texture analysis of sonograms in chronic inflammations of thyroid gland.

The current practice in assessing sonographic findings of chronic inflamed thyroid tissue is mainly qualitative, based just on a physician's experience. This study shows that inflamed and healthy tissues can be differentiated by automatic texture analysis of B-mode sonographic images. Feature selection is the most important part of this procedure.