Automated seeds location for whole body NaF PET segmentation

/sup 18/F-labeled NaF, also called [/sup 18/F] fluoride ion, Positron Emission Tomography (NaF PET) is a specific imaging modality of bone activity and allows bone tumor detection. In this paper, we propose a fast-automated method for the location of anatomical structures by special planes and seeds in whole body NaF PET images. This step is crucial in registration and segmentation processes such as region growing. Our method proceeds in two steps: first, it delineates anatomical objects such as bladder, skull, spine and legs with two horizontal planes (bottom and top); secondly, it determines labeled seeds in these objects. Processes are based on the analysis of the Slice Energy (SE) and the computation of the Center of Gravity (CG) of all transverse slices. This method was applied to seeds initialization in order to segment the whole skeleton. This segmentation could be helpful for bone tumors detection and bone uptake quantification. Fast and satisfying results are obtained. Robustness of our method was positively tested on a set of seven NaF PET images.