Fully-automated deep learning-powered system for DCE-MRI analysis of brain tumors

Publication date: Available online 27 November 2019Source: Artificial Intelligence in MedicineAuthor(s): Jakub Nalepa, Pablo Ribalta Lorenzo, Michal Marcinkiewicz, Barbara Bobek-Billewicz, Pawel Wawrzyniak, Maksym Walczak, Michal Kawulok, Wojciech Dudzik, Krzysztof Kotowski, Izabela Burda, Bartosz Machura, Grzegorz Mrukwa, Pawel Ulrych, Michael P. HayballAbstractDynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) plays an important role in diagnosis and grading of brain tumors. Although manual DCE biomarker extraction algorithms boost the diagnostic yield of DCE-MRI by providing quantitative information on tumor prognosis and prediction, they are time-consuming and prone to human errors. In this paper, we propose a fully-automated, end-to-end system for DCE-MRI analysis of brain tumors. Our deep learning-powered technique does not require any user interaction, it yields reproducible results, and it is rigorously validated against benchmark and clinical data. Also, we introduce a cubic model of the vascular input function used for pharmacokinetic modeling which significantly decreases the fitting error when compared with the state of the art, alongside a real-time algorithm for determination of the vascular input region. An extensive experimental study, backed up with statistical tests, showed that our system delivers state-of-the-art results while requiring less than 3 minutes to process an entire input DCE-MRI study using a single GPU.
Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine - Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: research