TITLE:
Hepatic vessel segmentation on contrast enhanced CT image sequence for liver transplantation planning
AUTHORS:
Do-Yeon Kim
KEYWORDS:
Living Donor Liver Transplantation; Hepatic Vascular Structure; Mathematical Morphology; Image Segmentation
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering,
Vol.6 No.4,
April
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: The
structure and morphology of the hepatic vessels and their relationship between
tumors and liver segments are major interests to surgeons for liver surgical
planning. In case of living donor liver transplantation (LDLT), the most
important step in determining donor suitability is an accurate assessment of
the liver volume available for
transplantation. In addition, the mutual principles of the procedures
include dissection in the appropriate anatomic plane without portal
occlusion, minimization of blood loss, and avoidance of injury to the
remaining liver. It is essential first step to identify and evaluate the major
hepatic vascular structure for liver surgical planning. In this paper, the
threshold was determined to segment the liver region automatically based on the
distribution ratio of intensity value; and the hepatic vessels were extracted
with mathematical morphology transformation, which called hit operation, that
is slightly modified version of hit-and-miss operation on contrast enhanced
CT image sequence. We identified the vein using the preserved voxel
connectivity between two consecutive transverse image sequences, followed by
resection into right lobe including right hepatic vein, middle hepatic vein
branches andleft lobe including left hepatic vein. An automated hepatic vessel
segmentation scheme is recommended for liver surgical planning such as tumor
resection and transplantation. These vessel extraction method combined with
liver region segmentation technique could be applicable to extract tree-like
organ structures such as carotid, renal, coronary artery, and airway path from
various medical imaging modalities.