Digital Medical Image Segmentation Using Fuzzy C-Means Clustering

Chapter 4 - Comparative analysis of filtering methods in fuzzy C-means: Environment for DICOM image segmentation

Given current error rates, this article surveys various approaches and techniques for improved breast lesion diagnosis in medical images, including mammography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. The author also includes studies that compare human versus computer-aided diagnosis.

Deep learning has achieved great success in the field of computer vision, and the precision in image classification and image detection has surpassed humans. Therefore, this paper combines deep learning and medical image segmentation, focusing on how to improve the accuracy and speed of segmentation algorithm of medical exercise rehabilitation image. Aiming at the shortcomings of traditional medical image recognition methods, a medical exercise rehabilitation image segmentation algorithm based on hierarchical features of convolutional neural networks is proposed, this paper calls it as hierarchical features of convolutional neural networks (HFCNN). The algorithm firstly samples the convolution output of multiple layers in the convolutional neural network to a unified scale and combines them to construct a hierarchical feature. This hierarchical feature combines the structural information of objects contained in the shallow layer of the network with the semantic information of objects contained in the deep layers of the network, so it has a strong ability to express. Secondly, the image can be segmented into multiple super pixels by the super pixel segmentation algorithm. The classifier is trained using the hierarchical features of the super pixel, and then the classification result is mapped back to the pixel. Finally, a fully connected conditional random field algorithm including one-potential potential energy and paired potential energy is constructed. The corresponding energy function is used to smooth the classification result of the pixel, and the regional consistency and continuity of the pixel mark are improved. Compared with many classical convolutional neural network algorithms, this algorithm not only accelerates the network convergence speed, shortens the training time, but also significantly improves the accuracy of segmentation algorithm of medical exercise rehabilitation image, showing good practical value.

Diffusion coupling model based on neural oscillation synchronization theory, which can extract different targets with different gray levels from one, has been an important way for realizing image segmentation. This paper describes the diffusion coupling model and its algorithm and process for image segmentation. Simulation programs for supplementing this algorithm were compiled based on MATLAB platform. Experimental results on synthetic images, infrared images and brain magnetic resonance images show that, by setting reasonable algorithm parameters, the target image extraction and segmentation of different elements can be achieved. This image segmentation algorithm exhibits wide applications in medical image diagnosis, satellite image processing, traffic control, biometrics and others.

Region segmentation is one of the most common methods of medical image segmentation. However, it still has some disadvantages in practice: (1) Threshold choice will result in a poor performance in the image segmentation if there is little difference in the gray of an image. (2) Region-based segmentation algorithm is usually uncertain in defining the edge between the object and the background. This paper implements an improved algorithm to overcome these problems. In the algorithm, the FCM (fuzzy C-means) clustering method is used to improve the accuracy of image segmentation according to its stability. And Roberts operator is also added to compensate the deficiency in edge detection. This medical image segmentation method is a combination of region segmentation and edge segmentation, which is based on OTSU threshold segmentation, fuzzy C-means clustering and Roberts operator. Experiments show that the improved segmentation algorithm has a better performance than those traditional algorithms in the effect.

Multilevel thresholding for segmentation of medical brain images using real coded genetic algorithm

In recent years, generative adversarial networks (GANs) have gained tremendous popularity for various imaging related tasks such as artificial image generation to support AI training. GANs are especially useful for medical imaging-related tasks where training datasets are usually limited in size and heavily imbalanced against the diseased class. We present a systematic review, following the PRISMA guidelines, of recent GAN architectures used for medical image analysis to help the readers in making an informed decision before employing GANs in developing medical image classification and segmentation models. We have extracted 54 papers that highlight the capabilities and application of GANs in medical imaging from January 2015 to August 2020 and inclusion criteria for meta-analysis. Our results show four main architectures of GAN that are used for segmentation or classification in medical imaging. We provide a comprehensive overview of recent trends in the application of GANs in clinical diagnosis through medical image segmentation and classification and ultimately share experiences for task-based GAN implementations.

Need for medical imaging has immensely increased to diagnose functionality of organs and tissues. Application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computerized tomography scan (CT scan) has automated the process of disease prediction which otherwise would need manual intervention of experienced physicians. Critical transplants and tumor diagnosis of kidney, heart and liver could be very challenging without the application of high-resolution medical imaging. Semantic image segmentation helps to identify features within the image and label them to demarcate the background from organs and tumors formed on them. Current proposed model is built by applying image segmentation using deep learning models by training 3D image information obtained from KITS-19 using CNN U-Net architecture to segregate essential tumor details from the kidney background images. Considering the evaluation of medical condition based on imagery is very challenging due to lack of pre-processing methods to handle unbalanced nature of class distribution which is common in medical imaging. In the current research, we apply state-of-the-art convolution neural network and deep learning models to predict the tumor in MRI imagery. We performed evaluation of a subset of 60 CT scans with slice thickness values obtained from KiTS19 dataset. We also compared the image segmentation model with BRATS’2013 challenging dataset also to validate the prediction of tumor in brain MRI scan images. Performance evaluation of kidney and tumor features obtained through threefold cross validation comparing with ground truth gave us dice coefficient score of 0.96 while tumor segmentation prediction was close to 0.80. We believe the performance can be increased through higher GPU memory requirements, which was a limitation to our existing GPU hardware. Nevertheless, the possibility of applying improved deep learning model based on existing results and can be a promising step forward in medical imaging segmentation.

DSEU-net: A novel deep supervision SEU-net for medical ultrasound image segmentation

The discovery of X-ray in 1895 initiated the era of medical imaging diagnostics. Since then, medical imaging systems have realized unprecedented advancements. These systems have also turned out to be invaluable tools in the practice of diagnostic medicine. However, despite the significant development in medical imaging technologies, processing medical images still pose a substantial challenge especially when it comes to image segmentation. That problem is gradually being alleviated by the implementation of digital medical image processing, especially in the diagnosis and treatment of brain tumors. But the capability of most of the contemporary image delineating algorithms remains limited. Therefore, there is a need to come up with the new medical image segmentation programs to fully utilize the power of digital image processing. In light that, this article reviews some of the contemporary algorithmic protocols for brain tumor delineation systems and how effective they are.

Medical images have made a great impact on diagnosis, clinical studies and treatment planning. The most important part of medicalimage processing is segmentation. It is one of the hardest and most frequently required steps in Medical image processing. Many segmentation methods have been proposed for medical images. Methods for performing medical image segmentation vary widely depending on imaging modality, the specific application and type of body part tobe studied. The performance of these techniques is highly associated with the extraction of anatomic structures and separation of suspicious regions from the background and soft tissues effectively.This review paper investigates applicability of different algorithms for computer-aided segmentation of medical images. The study revealed that several algorithms have been explored in the literature for segmentation of anatomic structures from different medical images. Among them k-means, fuzzy c-means and variations of kmeans clustering techniques are extensively used for medical image segmentation.

Medical image segmentation plays an essential role in computer-aided diagnostic systems in various applications. Therefore, researchers are attracted to apply new algorithms for medical image processing because it is a massive investment in developing medical imaging methods such as dermatoscopy, X-rays, microscopy, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging. (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), So segmentation of medical images is considered one of the most important medical imaging processes because it extracts the field of interest from the Return on investment (ROI) through an automatic or semi-automatic process. The medical image is divided into regions based on the specific descriptions, such as tissue/organ division in medical applications for border detection, tumor detection/segmentation, and comprehensive and accurate detection. Several methods of segmentation have been proposed in the literature, but their efficacy is difficult to compare. To better address, this issue, a variety of measurement standards have been suggested to decide the consistency of the segmentation outcome. Unsupervised ranking criteria use some of the statistics in the hash score based on the original picture. The key aim of this paper is to study some literature on unsupervised algorithms (K-mean, K-medoids) and to compare the working efficiency of unsupervised algorithms with different types of medical images.

This paper presents a new technique for incorporating local membership information into the standard fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering algorithm. In this technique, the objective consists of minimizing the classical FCM function with a unity fuzzifier exponent plus the Kullback-Leibler (KL) information distance acting as a fuzzification and regularization term. The KL distance is proposed to measure the proximity between cluster membership function of a pixel and an average of the cluster membership functions of immediate neighborhood pixels. Therefore, minimizing this KL distance biases the cluster membership of the pixel toward this smoothed membership function of the local neighborhoods. This can provide immunity against noise and results in clustered images with piecewise homogeneous regions. Results of clustering and segmentation of synthetic and real-world medical images are presented to compare the performance of the proposed local membership KL information based FCM (LMKLFCM) and the standard FCM, a local data information based FCM (LDFCM) and a type of local membership information based FCM (LMFCM) algorithms.

In this paper, a novel level set approach is proposed for segmentation of medical ultrasound images. Considering the speckle noise and low contrast of medical ultrasound images, we add an extra stopping term into the formulation of level set evolution without re-initialization (LSEWR). Compared with traditional active contour models, the proposed level set approach has more flexible initialization and larger capture range. It is insensitive to the initial contour and larger time step can be used. The initial contour can be easily initialized as a circle or rectangular, thus achieving semi-automatic segmentation of ultrasound medical images. The experimental results show that the proposed method can be used for semi-automatic and high-quality segmentation of medical ultrasound images.

Artificial intelligence algorithms have been used in a wide range of applications in clinical aided diagnosis, such as automatic MR image segmentation and seizure EEG signal analyses. In recent years, many machine learning-based automatic MR brain image segmentation methods have been proposed as auxiliary methods of medical image analysis in clinical treatment. Nevertheless, many problems regarding precise medical images, which cannot be effectively utilized to improve partition performance, remain to be solved. Due to the poor contrast in grayscale images, the ambiguity and complexity of MR images, and individual variability, the performance of classic algorithms in medical image segmentation still needs improvement. In this paper, we introduce a distributed multitask fuzzy c-means (MT-FCM) clustering algorithm for MR brain image segmentation that can extract knowledge common among different clustering tasks. The proposed distributed MT-FCM algorithm can effectively exploit information common among different but related MR brain image segmentation tasks and can avoid the negative effects caused by noisy data that exist in some MR images. Experimental results on clinical MR brain images demonstrate that the distributed MT-FCM method demonstrates more desirable performance than the classic signal task method.