Tumor detection in T1, T2, FLAIR and MPR brain images using a combination of optimization and fuzzy clustering improved by seed‐based region growing algorithm

Tumor and Edema region present in Magnetic Resonance (MR) brain image can be segmented using Optimization and Clustering merged with seed‐based region growing algorithm. The proposed algorithm shows effectiveness in tumor detection in T1 ‐ w, T2 – w, Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery and Multiplanar Reconstruction type MR brain images. After an initial level segmentation exhibited by Modified Particle Swarm Optimization (MPSO) and Fuzzy C – Means (FCM) algorithm, the seed points are initialized using the region growing algorithm and based on these seed points; tumor detection in MR brain images is done. The parameters taken for comparison with the conventional techniques are Mean Square Error, Peak Signal to Noise Ratio, Jaccard (Tanimoto) index, Dice Overlap indices and Computational Time. These parameters prove the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. Heterogeneous type tumor regions present in the input MR brain images are segmented using the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, the algorithm shows augmentation in the process of brain tumor identification. Availability of gold standard images has led to the comparison of the suggested algorithm with MPSO‐based FCM and conventional Region Growing algorithm. Also, the algorithm recommended through this research is capable of producing Similarity Index value of 0.96, Overlap Fraction value of 0.97 and Extra Fraction value of 0.05, which are far better than the values articulated by MPSO‐based FCM and Region Growing algorithm. The proposed algorithm favors the segmentation of contrast enhanced images. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 27, 33–45, 2017     

Robust brain MRI denoising and segmentation using enhanced non‐local means algorithm

Image denoising is an integral component of many practical medical systems. Non‐local means (NLM) is an effective method for image denoising which exploits the inherent structural redundancy present in images. Improved adaptive non‐local means (IANLM) is an improved variant of classical NLM based on a robust threshold criterion. In this paper, we have proposed an enhanced non‐local means (ENLM) algorithm, for application to brain MRI, by introducing several extensions to the IANLM algorithm. First, a Rician bias correction method is applied for adapting the IANLM algorithm to Rician noise in MR images. Second, a selective median filtering procedure based on fuzzy c‐means algorithm is proposed as a postprocessing step, in order to further improve the quality of IANLM‐filtered image. Third, different parameters of the proposed ENLM algorithm are optimized for application to brain MR images. Different variants of the proposed algorithm have been presented in order to investigate the influence of the proposed modifications. The proposed variants have been validated on both T1‐weighted (T1‐w) and T2‐weighted (T2‐w) simulated and real brain MRI. Compared with other denoising methods, superior quantitative and qualitative denoising results have been obtained for the proposed algorithm. Additionally, the proposed algorithm has been applied to T2‐weighted brain MRI with multiple sclerosis lesion to show its superior capability of preserving pathologically significant information. Finally, impact of the proposed algorithm has been tested on segmentation of brain MRI. Quantitative and qualitative segmentation results verify that the proposed algorithm based segmentation is better compared with segmentation produced by other contemporary techniques.     

A fully automated hybrid methodology using Cuckoo‐based fuzzy clustering technique for magnetic resonance brain image segmentation

This article aims at developing an automated hybrid algorithm using Cuckoo Based Search (CBS) and interval type‐2 fuzzy based clustering, so as to exhibit efficient magnetic resonance (MR) brain image segmentation. An automatic MR brain image segmentation facilitates and enables a radiologist to have a brief review and easy analysis of complicated tumor regions of imprecise gray level regions with minimal user interface. The tumor region having severe intensity variations and suffering from poor boundaries are to be detected by the proposed hybrid technique that could ease the process of clinical diagnosis and this tends to be the core subject of this article. The ability of the proposed technique is compared using standard comparison parameters such as mean squared error, peak signal to noise ratio, computational time, Dice Overlap Index, and Jaccard T animoto C oefficient Index. The proposed CBS combined with interval type‐2 fuzzy based clustering produces a sensitivity of 0.7143 and specificity of 0.9375, which are far better than the conventional techniques such as kernel based, entropy based, graph‐cut based, and self‐organizing maps based clustering. Appreciable segmentation results of tumor region that enhances clinical diagnosis is made available through this article and two of the radiologists who have hands on experience in the field of radiology have extended their support in validating the efficiency of the proposed methodology and have given their consent in utilizing the proposed methodology in the processes of clinical oncology.     

Improved fuzzy entropy clustering algorithm for MRI brain image segmentation

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain image segmentation is essential at preliminary stage in the neuroscience research and computer‐aided diagnosis. However, presence of noise and intensity inhomogeneity in MRI brain images leads to improper segmentation. The fuzzy entropy clustering (FEC) is often used to deal with noisy data. One major disadvantage of the FEC algorithm is that it does not consider the local spatial information. In this article, we have proposed an improved fuzzy entropy clustering (IFEC) algorithm by introducing a new fuzzy factor, which incorporates both local spatial and gray‐level information. The IFEC algorithm is insensitive to noise, preserves the image detail during clustering, and is free of parameter selection. The efficacy of IFEC algorithm is demonstrated by comparing it quantitatively with the state‐of‐the‐art segmentation approaches in terms of similarity index on publically available real and simulated MRI brain images.     

Automatic segmentation of cerebral hemispheres in MR human head scans

Automatic segmentation of cerebral hemispheres in magnetic resonance (MR) brain images help to quantify the brain asymmetry and correct several MR brain deformities. The detection of mid‐sagittal plane (MSP) in human brain image is necessary to segment the hemispheres for both operator‐based and automated brain image asymmetric analysis. In this article, a computationally simple and accurate technique to detect MSP in MRI human head scans using curve fitting is developed. The left and right hemispheres are segmented based on the detected MSP. The accuracy of the MSP is evaluated by comparing the segmented left and right hemispheres against the manually segmented ones. Experimental results using 78 volumes of T1, T2 and PD‐weighted MRI brain images show that the proposed method has accurately segmented the cerebral hemispheres based on the detected MSP in axial and coronal orientations of normal and pathological brain images.     

Hierarchical fuzzy segmentation of brain MR images

In brain magnetic resonance (MR) images, image segmentation and 3D visualization are very useful tools for the diagnosis of abnormalities. Segmentation of white matter (WM), gray matter (GM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is the basic process for 3D visualization of brain MR images. Of the many algorithms, the fuzzy c‐means (FCM) technique has been widely used for segmentation of brain MR images. However, the FCM technique does not yield sufficient results under radio frequency (RF) nonuniformity. We propose a hierarchical FCM (HFCM), which provides good segmentation results under RF nonuniformity and does not require any parameter setting. We also generate Talairach templates of the brain that are deformed to 3D brain MR images. Using the deformed templates, only the cerebrum region is extracted from the 3D brain MR images. Then, the proposed HFCM partitions the cerebrum region into WM, GM, and CSF. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 13, 115–125, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10035     

MRI brain image enhancement using brightness preserving adaptive fuzzy histogram equalization

In this article, fuzzy logic based adaptive histogram equalization (AHE) is proposed to enhance the contrast of MRI brain image. Medical image plays an important role in monitoring patient's health condition and giving an effective diagnostic. Mostly, medical images suffer from different problems such as poor contrast and noise. So it is necessary to enhance the contrast and to remove the noise in order to improve the quality of a various medical images such as CT, X‐ray, MRI, and MAMOGRAM images. Fuzzy logic is a useful tool for handling the ambiguity or uncertainty. Brightness Preserving Adaptive Fuzzy Histogram Equalization technique is proposed to improve the contrast of MRI brain images by preserving brightness. Proposed method comprises of two stages. First, fuzzy logic is applied to an input image and then it's output is given to AHE technique. This process not only preserves the mean brightness and but also improves the contrast of an image. A huge number of highly MRI brain images are taken in the proposed method. Performance of the proposed method is compared with existing methods using the parameters namely entropy, feature similarity index, and contrast improvement index and the experimental results show that the proposed method overwhelms the previous existing methods.     

A fuzzy logic‐based meningioma tumor detection in magnetic resonance brain images using CANFIS and U‐Net CNN classification

This article develops a methodology for meningioma brain tumor detection process using fuzzy logic based enhancement and co‐active adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system and U‐Net convolutional neural network classification methods. The proposed meningioma tumor detection process consists of the following stages as, enhancement, feature extraction, and classifications. The enhancement of the source brain image is done using fuzzy logic and then dual tree‐complex wavelet transform is applied to this enhanced image at different levels of scale. The features are computed from the decomposed sub band images and these features are further classified using CANFIS classification method which identifies the meningioma brain image from nonmeningioma brain image. The performance of the proposed meningioma brain tumor detection and segmentation system is analyzed in terms of sensitivity, specificity, segmentation accuracy, and Dice coefficient index with detection rate.     

A complete automated algorithm for segmentation of tissues and identification of tumor region in T1, T2, and FLAIR brain images using optimization and clustering techniques

Tissues in brain are the most complicated parts of our body, a clear examination and study are therefore required by a radiologist to identify the pathologies. Normal magnetic resonance (MR) scanner is capable of producing brain images with bounded tissues, where unique and segregated views of the tissues are required. A distinguished view upon the images is manually impossible and can be subjected to operator errors. With the assistance of a soft computing technique, an automated unique segmentation upon the brain tissues along with the identification of the tumor region can be effectively done. These functionalities assist the radiologist extensively. Several soft computing techniques have been proposed and one such technique which is being proposed is PSO‐based FCM algorithm. The results of the proposed algorithm is compared with fuzzy C‐means (FCM) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms using comparison factors such as mean square error (MSE), peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), entropy (energy function), Jaccard (Tanimoto Coefficient) index, dice overlap index and memory requirement for processing the algorithm. The efficiency of the PSO‐FCM algorithm is verified using the comparison factors.     

Integrated segmentation of brain tumor images for radiotherapy and neurosurgery

Segmentation of brain tumor images is an important task in diagnosis and treatment planning for cancer patients. To achieve this goal with standard clinical acquisition protocols, conventionally, either classification algorithms are applied on multimodal MR images or atlas‐based segmentation is used on a high‐resolution monomodal MR image. These two approaches have been commonly regarded separately. We propose to integrate all the available imaging information into one framework to be able to use the information gained from the tissue classification of the multimodal images to perform a more precise segmentation on the high‐resolution monomodal image by atlas‐based segmentation. For this, we combine a state of the art regularized classification method with an enhanced version of an atlas‐registration approach including multiscale tumor‐growth modeling. This contribution offers the possibility to simultaneously segment subcortical structures in the patient by warping the respective atlas labels, which is important for neurosurgical planning and radiotherapy planning. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 23, 59–63, 2013     

Brightness preserving optimized weighted bi-histogram equalization algorithm and its application to MR brain image segmentation

Medical image segmentation is crucial for neuroscience research and computer-aided diagnosis. However, intensity inhomogeneity and existence of noise in magnetic resonance images lead to incorrect segmentation. In this article, an effective method called enhanced fuzzy level set algorithm is presented to segment the white matter, gray matter, and cerebrospinal fluid automatically in contrast-enhanced brain images. In this method, first, exposure threshold is computed to divide the input histogram into two sub-histograms of different gray levels. The input histogram is clipped using a mean gray level to control the excessive enhancement rate. Then, these two sub-histograms are modified and equalized independently to get a better contrast enhanced image. Finally, an enhanced fuzzy level set algorithm is employed to facilitate image segmentation. The extensive experimental results proved the outstanding performance of the proposed algorithm compared with other existing methods. The results conform its effectiveness for MR brain image segmentation.     

Contrast enhancement using real coded genetic algorithm based modified histogram equalization for gray scale images

Histogram equalization is a well‐known technique used for contrast enhancement. The global HE usually results in excessive contrast enhancement because of lack of control on the level of contrast enhancement. A new technique named modified histogram equalization using real coded genetic algorithm (MHERCGA) is aimed to sweep over this drawback. The primary aim of this paper is to obtain an enhanced method which keeps the original brightness. This method incorporates a provision to have a control over the level of contrast enhancement and applicable for all types of image including low contrast MRI brain images. The basic idea of this technique is to partition the input image histogram into two subhistograms based on a threshold which is obtained using Otsu's optimality principle. Then, bicriteria optimization problem is formulated to satisfy the aforementioned requirements. The subhistograms are modified by selecting optimal contrast enhancement parameters. Finally, the union of the modified subhistograms produce a contrast enhanced and details preserved output image. While developing an optimization problem, real coded genetic algorithm is applied to determine the optimal value of contrast enhancement parameters. This mechanism enhances the contrast of the input image better than the existing contemporary HE methods. The quality of the enhanced brain image indicates that the image obtained after this method can be useful for efficient detection of brain cancer in further process like segmentation, classification, etc. The performance of the proposed method is well supported by the contrast enhancement quantitative metrics such as discrete entropy and natural image quality evaluator. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 25, 24–32, 2015     

A new images segmentation method based on modified particle swarm optimization algorithm

The partitioning of an image into several constituent components is called image segmentation. Many approaches have been developed; one of them is the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, which is widely used. PSO algorithm is one of the most recent stochastic optimization strategies. In this article, a new efficient technique for the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain images segmentation thematic based on PSO is proposed. The proposed algorithm presents an improved variant of PSO, which is particularly designed for optimal segmentation and it is called modified particle swarm optimization. The fitness function is used to evaluate all the particle swarm in order to arrange them in a descending order. The algorithm is evaluated by performance measures such as run time execution and the quality of the image after segmentation. The performance of the segmentation process is demonstrated by using a defined set of benchmark images and compared against conventional PSO, genetic algorithm, and PSO with Mahalanobis distance based segmentation methods. Then we applied our method on MRI brain image to determinate normal and pathological tissues. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 23, 265–271, 2013     

A fast and efficient computer aided diagnostic system to detect tumor from brain magnetic resonance imaging

In this work, a simple and efficient CAD (computer‐aided diagnostic) system is proposed for tumor detection from brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Poor contrast MR images are preprocessed by using morphological operations and DSR (dynamic stochastic resonance) technique. The appropriate segmentation of MR images plays an important role in yielding the correct detection of tumor. On examination of three views of brain MRI, it was visible that the region of interest (ROI) lies in the middle and its size ranges from 240 × 240 mm² to 280 × 280 mm². The proposed system makes effective use of this information and identifies four blocks from the desired ROI through block‐based segmentation. Texture and shape features are extracted for each block of all MRIs in the training set. The range of these feature values defines the threshold to distinguish tumorous and nontumorous MRIs. Features of each block of an MRI view are checked against the threshold. For a particular feature, if a block is found tumorous in a view, then the other views are also checked for the presence of tumor. If corresponding blocks in all the views are found to be tumorous, then the MRI is classified as tumorous. This selective block processing technique improves computational efficiency of the system. The proposed technique is well adaptive and fast, and it is compared with well‐known existing techniques, like k‐means, fuzzy c‐means, etc. The performance analysis based on accuracy and precision parameters emphasizes the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed work.     

Brightness preserving bi‐level fuzzy histogram equalization for MRI brain image contrast enhancement

In this article, brightness preserving bi‐level fuzzy histogram equalization (BPFHE) is proposed for the contrast enhancement of MRI brain images. Histogram equalization (HE) is widely used for improving the contrast in digital images. As a result, such image creates side‐effects such as washed‐out appearance and false contouring due to the significant change in brightness. In order to overcome these problems, mean brightness preserving HE based techniques have been proposed. Generally, these methods partition the histogram of the original image into sub histograms and then independently equalize each sub‐histogram. The BPFHE consists of two stages. First, fuzzy histogram is computed based on fuzzy set theory to handle the inexactness of gray level values in a better way compared to classical crisp histograms. In the second stage, the fuzzy histogram is divided into two sub‐histograms based on the mean intensities of the multi‐peaks in the original image and then equalizes them independently to preserve image brightness. The quantitative and subjective enhancement of proposed BPBFHE algorithm is evaluated using two well known parameters like entropy or average information contents (AIC) and Feature Similarity Index Matrix (FSIM) for different gray scale images. The proposed method have been tested using several images and gives better visual quality as compared to the conventional methods. The simulation results show that the proposed method has better performance than the existing methods, and preserve the original brightness quite well, so that it is possible to be utilized in medical image diagnosis.     

Brain MRI denoizing and segmentation based on improved adaptive nonlocal means

Denoizing of magnetic resonance (MR) brain images has been focus of numerous studies in the past. The performance of subsequent stages of image processing, in automated image analysis, is substantially improved by explicit consideration of noise. Nonlocal means (NLM) is a popular denoizing method which exploits usual redundancy present in an image to restore noise free image. It computes restored value of a pixel as weighted average of candidate pixels in a search window. In this article, we propose an improved version of the NLM algorithm which is modified in two ways. First, a robust threshold criterion is introduced, which helps selecting suitable pixels for participation in the restoration process. Second, the search window size is made adaptive using a window adaptation test based on the proposed threshold criterion. The modified NLM algorithm is named as improved adaptive nonlocal means (IANLM). An alternate implementation of IANLM is also proposed which exploits the image smoothness property to yield better denoizing performance. The computational burden is reduced significantly due to proposed modifications. Experiments are performed on simulated and real brain MR images at various noise levels. Results indicate that the proposed algorithm produces not only better denoizing results (quantitatively and qualitatively), but is also computationally more efficient. Moreover, the proposed technique is incorporated in an already proposed segmentation framework to check its validity in the practical scenario of segmentation. Improved segmentation results (quantitative and qualitative) verify the practical usefulness of the proposed algorithm in real world medical applications. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 23, 235–248, 2013     

A new rectangular window based image cropping method for generalization of brain neoplasm classification systems

Classification of brain neoplasm images is one of the most challenging research areas in the field of medical image processing. The main objective of this study is to design a brain neoplasm classification system that can be trained using multiple various sized MR images of different institutions. The proposed method is a generalized classification system; it can be used in a single institute or in a number of institutions at the same time, without any restriction on image size. The generalization and unbiased capability of the proposed method can bring researchers on a single platform to work on some standard forms of computer aided diagnosis system with more efficient diagnostic capabilities. In this study, a suitable size of moveable rectangular window is used between segmentation and feature extraction stages. A semiautomatic, localized region based active contour method is used for segmentation of brain neoplasm region. Discrete wavelet transform for feature extraction, principal component analysis for feature selection and support vector machine is used as classifier. For the first time MR images of 2 sizes and from different institutions are used in training and testing of brain neoplasm classifier. Three glioma grades were classified using 92 MR images. The proposed method achieved the highest accuracy of 88.26%, the highest sensitivity of 92.23% and the maximum specificity of 93.93%. In addition, the proposed method is computationally less complex, requires shorter processing time and is more efficient in terms of storage capacity.     

An Improved Jellyfish Algorithm for Multilevel Thresholding of Magnetic Resonance Brain Image Segmentations

Image segmentation is vital when analyzing medical images, especially magnetic resonance (MR) images of the brain. Recently, several image segmentation techniques based on multilevel thresholding have been proposed for medical image segmentation; however, the algorithms become trapped in local minima and have low convergence speeds, particularly as the number of threshold levels increases. Consequently, in this paper, we develop a new multilevel thresholding image segmentation technique based on the jellyfish search algorithm (JSA) (an optimizer). We modify the JSA to prevent descents into local minima, and we accelerate convergence toward optimal solutions. The improvement is achieved by applying two novel strategies: Ranking-based updating and an adaptive method. Ranking-based updating is used to replace undesirable solutions with other solutions generated by a novel updating scheme that improves the qualities of the removed solutions. We develop a new adaptive strategy to exploit the ability of the JSA to find a best-so-far solution; we allow a small amount of exploration to avoid descents into local minima. The two strategies are integrated with the JSA to produce an improved JSA (IJSA) that optimally thresholds brain MR images. To compare the performances of the IJSA and JSA, seven brain MR images were segmented at threshold levels of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30. IJSA was compared with several other recent image segmentation algorithms, including the improved and standard marine predator algorithms, the modified salp and standard salp swarm algorithms, the equilibrium optimizer, and the standard JSA in terms of fitness, the Structured Similarity Index Metric (SSIM), the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), the standard deviation (SD), and the Features Similarity Index Metric (FSIM). The experimental outcomes and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of the FSIM, the PSNR, the objective values, and the SD; in terms of the SSIM, IJSA was competitive with the others.     

A machine learning approach for brain image enhancement and segmentation

In brain MRI analysis, image segmentation is commonly used for measuring and visualizing the brain's anatomical structures, for surgical planning, etc. However, due to presence of noise and uncertainty between different tissues in the brain image, the segmentation of brain is a challenging task. This problem is rectified in this article using two stages. In the first stage an enhancement technique called contrast limited fuzzy adaptive histogram equalization (CLFAHE) which is a combination of CLAHE and fuzzy enhancement is used to improve the contrast of MRI Brain images. Contrast of the image is controlled using contrast intensification operator (Clip limit). The second stage deals with the segmentation of enhanced image. The enhanced brain images are segmented using new level‐set method which has the property of both local and global segmentation. Signed pressure force (SPF) function is also used here which stops the contours at weak and blurred edged efficiently.     

Leakage suppression in human airway tree segmentation using shape optimization based on fuzzy connectivity method

Human airway tree segmentation from computed tomography (CT) images is a very important step for virtual bronchoscopic applications. Imaging artifacts or thin airway walls decrease the contrast between the air and airway wall and make the segmented region to leak from inside of the airway to the parenchyma. This in turn begins the leakage phenomenon to build and then large parts of the lung parenchyma might be erroneously marked as the airway tree instead. Unfortunately, existing methods typically do not sufficiently extract the necessary peripheral airways needed to plan a procedure. In this article, we propose a new shape based human airway segmentation scheme to suppress the leakage into surrounding area which is based on fuzzy connectivity (FC) method. Complex medical image features such as weak boundary edges in the CT images of the lung parenchyma have fuzzy properties and can be described by FC in many extents. Our method aims to embed a mathematical shape optimization approach in a FC algorithm. Using the partial derivatives of the image data that is minimized with respect to the polar angle and cylindrical axis direction, a proper cost function based on cylindrical features of the airway branches is proposed. This approach retains the cylindrical properties of the airway branches during the segmentation process. The proposed cost function includes two parts named cylindrical‐shape feature and smoothed final error term. The former term arranges the underlying voxels on a cylindrical shape and the latter term controls and smoothes the final error considering the local minima's problem. To evaluate the efficiency of our proposed optimization technique in term of segmentation accuracy, the cost function is first applied to the simulated data with the spongy shape of leakage and the leakage origin. The impact of each term of the proposed cost function on the final error and the convergence of the algorithm are also evaluated. Then, the cost function with best proper parameters is applied to real image dataset. Comparisons of the results on multidetector CT chest scans show that our segmentation algorithm outperforms the fuzzy region growing algorithm. Quantitative comparisons with manually segmented airway trees also indicate high sensitivity of our segmentation algorithm on peripheral airways. On the basis of the results, it is concluded that the proposed method is able to detect more branches up to the sixth generation with no leakage which provides 2–3 more generations of airways than several other methods do. The extracted airway trees enable image‐guided bronchoscopy to go deeper into the human lung periphery than past studies. The novelty of our proposed method is to apply a shape optimization approach embedded in an efficient FC segmentation algorithm. Hence, our method prevents leakage from its origination in contrast to most previously published works that just set their algorithms to repeat the segmentation steps to reduce leakage. As our results indicate leakage suppression in human airway segmentation instead of readjusting the segmentation parameters, more airway branches can be extracted with correct shape. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 23, 71–84, 2013