Automated segmentation of trunk musculature with a deep CNN trained from sparse annotations in radiation therapy patients with metastatic spine disease: an observational study

TL;DR

A deep learning model was developed to automatically segment trunk muscles in cancer patients with spine disease using sparse CT data, achieving results comparable to manual methods.

Contribution

A deep CNN trained from sparse annotations enables accurate 3D segmentation of trunk musculature in metastatic spine disease patients.

Findings

The DL model achieved a mean Dice score above 0.769, comparable to manual segmentations.

Radiologist ratings showed noninferiority of DL-generated segmentations to manual ones.

The model can rapidly generate high-fidelity 3D muscle volumes for individualized fracture risk evaluation.

Abstract

Given the high prevalence of vertebral fractures following radiotherapy in patients with metastatic spine disease, torso muscle segmentation is necessary for biomechanical modeling of vertebral loading, permitting individualized evaluation of fracture risk.

In this study, we developed and validated a deep-learning model for full volumetric segmentation of the thoracic and abdominal spinal musculature in cancer patients with metastatic spine disease from sparsely annotated clinical CT image data. We obtained CT data for 148 metastatic spine disease patients undergoing radiotherapy treatment, and an external set of randomly selected 30 subjects from the National Lung Screening Trial. We extracted 1924 axial CT images at the midpoint of each vertebral level (T4 to L4) and manually labeled the key extensor and flexor muscles (up to 8 muscles per side) at each level. We trained a 2D nnU-Net deep-learning (DL) model to segment each muscle and, using these sparse annotations, trained the model to segment each muscle’s 3D volume per spine. Two experienced radiologists independently and blindly evaluated the anatomical fidelity of the segmentations using a Likert scale, for 1) manual- and 2) DL-segmentation, 3) random test samples from the muscle’s 3D volume and 4) an external NLST CT data.

The DL method achieved comparable performance to manual segmentations with a mean Dice score above 0.769. Mann-Whitney test analysis showed that the radiologist ratings of DL-generated muscle segmentations were noninferior to the manual segmentation for each muscle.

Demonstrating excellent performance for rapid, high-anatomical fidelity 3D segmentation of the main flexor, extensor, and stabilizing thoracolumbar muscles, the DL model from clinical CT scans, this development holds significant potential for reducing the manual effort required to generate individualized musculoskeletal models in cancer patients.

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