Automatic Three-Dimensional Rib Centerline Extraction from CT Scans For Enhanced Visualization and Anatomical Context
2011
We present a complete automatic system to extract 3D centerlines of ribs from thoracic CT scans. Our rib
centerline system determines the positional information for the rib cage consisting of extracted rib centerlines,
spinal canal centerline, pairing and labeling of ribs. We show an application of this output to produce an enhanced
visualization of the rib cage by the method of Kiraly et al., in which the ribs are digitally unfolded along their
centerlines. The centerline extraction consists of three stages: (a) pre-trace processing for rib localization, (b) rib
centerline tracing, and (c) post-trace processing to merge the rib traces. Then we classify ribs from non-ribs and
determine anatomical rib labeling. Our novel centerline tracing technique uses the Random Walker algorithm
to segment the structural boundary of the rib in successive 2D cross sections orthogonal to the longitudinal
direction of the ribs. Then the rib centerline is progressively traced along the rib using a 3D Kalman filter.
The rib centerline extraction framework was evaluated on 149 CT datasets with varying slice spacing, dose, and
under a variety of reconstruction kernels. The results of the evaluation are presented. The extraction takes
approximately 20 seconds on a modern radiology workstation and performs robustly even in the presence of
partial volume effects or rib pathologies such as bone metastases or fractures, making the system suitable for
assisting clinicians in expediting routine rib reading for oncology and trauma applications.
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