Lymph node detection in CT scans using modified U-Net with residual learning and 3D deep network.

Purpose: Lymph node (LN) detection is a crucial step that complements the diagnosis and treatments involved during cancer investigations. However, the low-contrast structures in the CT scan images and the nodes' varied shapes, sizes, and poses, along with their sparsely distributed locations, make the detection step challenging and lead to many false positives. The manual examination of the CT scan slices could be time-consuming, and false positives could divert the clinician's focus.