Attenuation correction with Region Growing Method used in the Positron Emission Mammography System

TL;DR

This paper introduces a 3D region growing segmentation method for attenuation correction in Positron Emission Mammography, enhancing image quality and tumor detection accuracy.

Contribution

A novel 3D seeded region growing method for attenuation correction in PEMi that improves image quality and tumor detection.

Findings

Improved image quality after attenuation correction.

Enhanced detection of small and early breast tumors.

Quantitative accuracy of radiotracer distribution increased.

Abstract

Positron Emission Mammography imaging system (PEMi) is a nuclear medicine diagnosis method dedicated for breast imaging. It provides a better resolution in detection of millimeter-sized breast tumors than whole-body PET. To address the requirement of semi-quantitative analysis with the radiotracer concentration map of the breast, a new attenuation correction method based on three-dimensional seeded region growing image segmentation (3DSRG-AC) solution was developed. The method gives a 3D connected region as the segmentation result instead of image slices. The continuously segmentation property makes this new method free of activity variation of breast tissues. Threshold value chosen is the key point for the segmentation process. The first valley of the grey level histogram of the reconstruction image is set as the lower threshold, which works fine in clinical application. Results show that attenuation correction for PEMi improves the image quality and the quantitative accuracy of radioactivity distribution determination. Attenuation correction also improves the probabilities to detect small and early breast tumors.