Automatic ROI Placement in the Upper Trapezius Muscle in B-mode Ultrasound Images.

Automatic ROI Placement in the Upper Trapezius Muscle in B-mode Ultrasound Images. Ultrason Imaging. 2019 Apr 16;:161734619839980 Authors: Behr M, McNabb E, Noseworthy M, Sidkar S, Kumbhare D Abstract Research involving B-mode ultrasound imaging often requires user defined regions of interest (ROIs) for analysis, traditionally drawn/selected by a trained operator. This manual process is incredibly time consuming and subjective. Here, we propose a fast and simple method of detecting the average location of aponeurosis layers in ultrasound images of the upper trapezius to place a rectangular ROI for quantitative image analysis. A total of 56 B-mode ultrasound images were analyzed, where rectangular ROIs were manually placed in the skeletal muscle by two trained operators. Interoperator agreement was determined between the ROI border locations using intercorrelation coefficient (ICC). Next, our automatic algorithm was applied (image thresholding, binary masking, and pixel intensity peak detection), estimating the mean position of both aponeurosis layers for rectangular ROI placement. The automatic estimation method was compared with the manual (visual) method by various statistics ( t test, linear correlation, Bland-Altman plot). The performance was also evaluated under additive noise conditions (Speckle). Finally, agreement of the overlapping ROI area between the manual and automatic methods was also computed. Performance of the automa...
Source: Ultrasonic Imaging - Category: Radiology Tags: Ultrason Imaging Source Type: research