Simulation of acquisition shifts in T2 weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery magnetic resonance images to stress test artificial intelligence segmentation networks.

Purpose: To provide a simulation framework for routine neuroimaging test data, which allows for "stress testing" of deep segmentation networks against acquisition shifts that commonly occur in clinical practice for T2 weighted (T2w) fluid-attenuated inversion recovery magnetic resonance imaging protocols.

Approach: The approach simulates "acquisition shift derivatives" of MR images based on MR signal equations. Experiments comprise the validation of the simulated images by real MR scans and example stress tests on state-of-the-art multiple sclerosis lesion segmentation networks to explore a generic model function to describe the F1 score in dependence of the contrast-affecting sequence parameters echo time (TE) and inversion time (TI).

Faster and Better: How Anomaly Detection Can Accelerate and Improve Reporting of Head Computed Tomography.

Background: Most artificial intelligence (AI) systems are restricted to solving a pre-defined task, thus limiting their generalizability to unselected datasets. Anomaly detection relieves this shortfall by flagging all pathologies as deviations from a learned norm. Here, we investigate whether diagnostic accuracy and reporting times can be improved by an anomaly detection tool for head computed tomography (CT), tailored to provide patient-level triage and voxel-based highlighting of pathologies.

Automated Detection of Ischemic Stroke and Subsequent Patient Triage in Routinely Acquired Head CT.

Purpose: Advanced machine-learning (ML) techniques can potentially detect the entire spectrum of pathology through deviations from a learned norm. We investigated the utility of a weakly supervised ML tool to detect characteristic findings related to ischemic stroke in head CT and provide subsequent patient triage.

Methods: Patients having undergone non-enhanced head CT at a tertiary care hospital in April 2020 with either no anomalies, subacute or chronic ischemia, lacunar infarcts of the deep white matter or hyperdense vessel signs were retrospectively analyzed.

Automated Pathology Detection and Patient Triage in Routinely Acquired Head Computed Tomography Scans.

Objectives: Anomaly detection systems can potentially uncover the entire spectrum of pathologies through deviations from a learned norm, meaningfully supporting the radiologist's workflow. We aim to report on the utility of a weakly supervised machine learning (ML) tool to detect pathologies in head computed tomography (CT) and adequately triage patients in an unselected patient cohort.

Materials And Methods: All patients having undergone a head CT at a tertiary care hospital in March 2020 were eligible for retrospective analysis.

Tissue Phenomics for prognostic biomarker discovery in low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer.

Tissue Phenomics is the discipline of mining tissue images to identify patterns that are related to clinical outcome providing potential prognostic and predictive value. This involves the discovery process from assay development, image analysis, and data mining to the final interpretation and validation of the findings. Importantly, this process is not linear but allows backward steps and optimization loops over multiple sub-processes.

Hough space parametrization: ensuring global consistency in intensity-based registration.

Intensity based registration is a challenge when images to be registered have insufficient amount of information in their overlapping region. Especially, in the absence of dominant structures such as strong edges in this region, obtaining a solution that satisfies global structural consistency becomes difficult. In this work, we propose to exploit the vast amount of available information beyond the overlapping region to support the registration process.

Deformable reconstruction of histology sections using structural probability maps.

The reconstruction of a 3D volume from a stack of 2D histology slices is still a challenging problem especially if no external references are available. Without a reference, standard registration approaches tend to align structures that should not be perfectly aligned. In this work we introduce a deformable, reference-free reconstruction method that uses an internal structural probability map (SPM) to regularize a free-form deformation.

Structure propagation for image registration.

Mosaicing is a commonly used technique in many medical imaging applications where subimages are stitched together in order to obtain a larger field of view. However, stitching, which involves alignment or registration in overlapping regions, is often challenging when the information shared by subimages is absent or small. While it is not possible to perform an alignment without overlap using existing techniques, imaging artifacts such as distortions towards image boundaries present further complications during registration by decreasing the reliability of available information.

Manifold learning for shape guided segmentation of cardiac boundaries: application to 3D+t cardiac MRI.

In this paper we propose a new method for shape guided segmentation of cardiac boundaries based on manifold learning of the shapes represented by the phase field approximation of the Mumford-Shah functional. A novel distance is defined to measure the similarity of shapes without requiring deformable registration. Cardiac motion is compensated and phases are mapped into one reference phase, that is the end of diastole, to avoid time warping and synchronization at all cardiac phases.

Manifold learning for image-based breathing gating in ultrasound and MRI.

Respiratory motion is a challenging factor for image acquisition and image-guided procedures in the abdominal and thoracic region. In order to address the issues arising from respiratory motion, it is often necessary to detect the respiratory signal. In this article, we propose a novel, purely image-based retrospective respiratory gating method for ultrasound and MRI.

Temporal groupwise registration for motion modeling.

We propose a novel method for the registration of time-resolved image sequences, called Spatio-Temporal groupwise non-rigid Registration using free-form deforMations (STORM). It is a groupwise registration method, with a group of images being considered simultaneously, in order to prevent bias introduction. This is different from pairwise registration methods where only two images are registered to each other.

Manifold learning for image-based breathing gating with application to 4D ultrasound.

Breathing motion leads to a significant displacement and deformation of organs in the abdominal region. This makes the detection of the breathing phase for numerous applications necessary. We propose a new, purely image-based respiratory gating method for ultrasound.