Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Grey Matter Segmentation in Spinal Cord MRIs via 3D Convolutional Encoder Networks with Shortcut Connections

Porisky, Adam ; Brosch, Tom ; Ljungberg, Emil LU orcid ; Tang, Lisa Y. W. ; Yoo, Youngjin ; De leener, Benjamin ; Traboulsee, Anthony ; Cohen-Adad, Julien and Tam, Roger (2017) In Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis and Multimodal Learning for Clinical Decision Support 10553. p.330-337
Abstract
Segmentation of grey matter in magnetic resonance images of the spinal cord is an important step in assessing disease state in neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. However, manual delineation of spinal cord tissue is time-consuming and susceptible to variability introduced by the rater. We present a novel segmentation method for spinal cord tissue that uses fully convolutional encoder networks (CENs) for direct end-to-end training and includes shortcut connections to combine multi-scale features, similar to a u-net. While CENs with shortcuts have been used successfully for brain tissue segmentation, spinal cord images have very different features, and therefore deserve their own investigation. In particular, we develop the... (More)
Segmentation of grey matter in magnetic resonance images of the spinal cord is an important step in assessing disease state in neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. However, manual delineation of spinal cord tissue is time-consuming and susceptible to variability introduced by the rater. We present a novel segmentation method for spinal cord tissue that uses fully convolutional encoder networks (CENs) for direct end-to-end training and includes shortcut connections to combine multi-scale features, similar to a u-net. While CENs with shortcuts have been used successfully for brain tissue segmentation, spinal cord images have very different features, and therefore deserve their own investigation. In particular, we develop the methodology by evaluating the impact of the number of layers, filter sizes, and shortcuts on segmentation accuracy in standard-resolution cord MRIs. This deep learning-based method is trained on data from a recent public challenge, consisting of 40 MRIs from 4 unique scan sites, with each MRI having 4 manual segmentations from 4 expert raters, resulting in a total of 160 image-label pairs. Performance of the method is evaluated using an independent test set of 40 scans and compared against the challenge results. Using a comprehensive suite of performance metrics, including the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and Jaccard index, we found shortcuts to have the strongest impact (0.60 to 0.80 in DSC), while filter size (0.76 to 0.80) and the number of layers (0.77 to 0.80) are also important considerations. Overall, the method is highly competitive with other state-of-the-art methods. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
host publication
Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis and Multimodal Learning for Clinical Decision Support : Third International Workshop, DLMIA 2017, and 7th International Workshop, ML-CDS 2017 held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2017, Proceedings - Third International Workshop, DLMIA 2017, and 7th International Workshop, ML-CDS 2017 held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2017, Proceedings
series title
Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis and Multimodal Learning for Clinical Decision Support
volume
10553
pages
330 - 337
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:85029795091
ISSN
0302-9743
1611-3349
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-67558-9_38
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
8cbb04fc-757a-46cd-8030-f21a3f5d3d50
date added to LUP
2023-05-01 14:38:47
date last changed
2025-05-19 13:19:19
@inproceedings{8cbb04fc-757a-46cd-8030-f21a3f5d3d50,
  abstract     = {{Segmentation of grey matter in magnetic resonance images of the spinal cord is an important step in assessing disease state in neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. However, manual delineation of spinal cord tissue is time-consuming and susceptible to variability introduced by the rater. We present a novel segmentation method for spinal cord tissue that uses fully convolutional encoder networks (CENs) for direct end-to-end training and includes shortcut connections to combine multi-scale features, similar to a u-net. While CENs with shortcuts have been used successfully for brain tissue segmentation, spinal cord images have very different features, and therefore deserve their own investigation. In particular, we develop the methodology by evaluating the impact of the number of layers, filter sizes, and shortcuts on segmentation accuracy in standard-resolution cord MRIs. This deep learning-based method is trained on data from a recent public challenge, consisting of 40 MRIs from 4 unique scan sites, with each MRI having 4 manual segmentations from 4 expert raters, resulting in a total of 160 image-label pairs. Performance of the method is evaluated using an independent test set of 40 scans and compared against the challenge results. Using a comprehensive suite of performance metrics, including the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and Jaccard index, we found shortcuts to have the strongest impact (0.60 to 0.80 in DSC), while filter size (0.76 to 0.80) and the number of layers (0.77 to 0.80) are also important considerations. Overall, the method is highly competitive with other state-of-the-art methods.}},
  author       = {{Porisky, Adam and Brosch, Tom and Ljungberg, Emil and Tang, Lisa Y. W. and Yoo, Youngjin and De leener, Benjamin and Traboulsee, Anthony and Cohen-Adad, Julien and Tam, Roger}},
  booktitle    = {{Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis and Multimodal Learning for Clinical Decision Support : Third International Workshop, DLMIA 2017, and 7th International Workshop, ML-CDS 2017 held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2017, Proceedings}},
  issn         = {{0302-9743}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{09}},
  pages        = {{330--337}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis and Multimodal Learning for Clinical Decision Support}},
  title        = {{Grey Matter Segmentation in Spinal Cord MRIs via 3D Convolutional Encoder Networks with Shortcut Connections}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67558-9_38}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/978-3-319-67558-9_38}},
  volume       = {{10553}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}