Modeling of Kidney Stones from Ultrasound Images based on Hybrid Regional Segmentation with Active Contours

Kidney stones (nephrolithiasis) are among the most common kidney diseases. They are solid stones that arise from minerals dissolved in urine. The treatment of kidney stones depends primarily on the position, size and composition of the stones, as well as on the general health condition of the patient. However, early diagnosis is quite complicated. In this paper, we propose a fully automatic hybrid method for identification and features extraction of the kidney stones. Specifically, model is based on the multiregional segmentation and approximation of the kidney stone area. Methods consequently use concept of the active contours which are focused on extraction of the geometrical features. The method remarkably allowing for an objective monitoring and classification of the kidney stones. These results may play a role to overcome conventionally used clinical procedures where clinicians mark kidney stones manually, without software feedback.