{"title":"Ensemble Learning with Multiclassifiers on Pediatric Hand Radiograph Segmentation for Bone Age Assessment.","authors":"Rui Liu, Yuanyuan Jia, Xiangqian He, Zhe Li, Jinhua Cai, Hao Li, Xiao Yang","doi":"10.1155/2020/8866700","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the study of pediatric automatic bone age assessment (BAA) in clinical practice, the extraction of the object area in hand radiographs is an important part, which directly affects the prediction accuracy of the BAA. But no perfect segmentation solution has been found yet. This work is to develop an automatic hand radiograph segmentation method with high precision and efficiency. We considered the hand segmentation task as a classification problem. The optimal segmentation threshold for each image was regarded as the prediction target. We utilized the normalized histogram, mean value, and variance of each image as input features to train the classification model, based on ensemble learning with multiple classifiers. 600 left-hand radiographs with the bone age ranging from 1 to 18 years old were included in the dataset. Compared with traditional segmentation methods and the state-of-the-art U-Net network, the proposed method performed better with a higher precision and less computational load, achieving an average PSNR of 52.43 dB, SSIM of 0.97, DSC of 0.97, and JSI of 0.91, which is more suitable in clinical application. Furthermore, the experimental results also verified that hand radiograph segmentation could bring an average improvement for BAA performance of at least 13%.</p>","PeriodicalId":47063,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Biomedical Imaging","volume":"2020 ","pages":"8866700"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3000,"publicationDate":"2020-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7609149/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Biomedical Imaging","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8866700","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2020/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, BIOMEDICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the study of pediatric automatic bone age assessment (BAA) in clinical practice, the extraction of the object area in hand radiographs is an important part, which directly affects the prediction accuracy of the BAA. But no perfect segmentation solution has been found yet. This work is to develop an automatic hand radiograph segmentation method with high precision and efficiency. We considered the hand segmentation task as a classification problem. The optimal segmentation threshold for each image was regarded as the prediction target. We utilized the normalized histogram, mean value, and variance of each image as input features to train the classification model, based on ensemble learning with multiple classifiers. 600 left-hand radiographs with the bone age ranging from 1 to 18 years old were included in the dataset. Compared with traditional segmentation methods and the state-of-the-art U-Net network, the proposed method performed better with a higher precision and less computational load, achieving an average PSNR of 52.43 dB, SSIM of 0.97, DSC of 0.97, and JSI of 0.91, which is more suitable in clinical application. Furthermore, the experimental results also verified that hand radiograph segmentation could bring an average improvement for BAA performance of at least 13%.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Biomedical Imaging is managed by a board of editors comprising internationally renowned active researchers. The journal is freely accessible online and also offered for purchase in print format. It employs a web-based review system to ensure swift turnaround times while maintaining high standards. In addition to regular issues, special issues are organized by guest editors. The subject areas covered include (but are not limited to):
Digital radiography and tomosynthesis
X-ray computed tomography (CT)
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)
Positron emission tomography (PET)
Ultrasound imaging
Diffuse optical tomography, coherence, fluorescence, bioluminescence tomography, impedance tomography
Neutron imaging for biomedical applications
Magnetic and optical spectroscopy, and optical biopsy
Optical, electron, scanning tunneling/atomic force microscopy
Small animal imaging
Functional, cellular, and molecular imaging
Imaging assays for screening and molecular analysis
Microarray image analysis and bioinformatics
Emerging biomedical imaging techniques
Imaging modality fusion
Biomedical imaging instrumentation
Biomedical image processing, pattern recognition, and analysis
Biomedical image visualization, compression, transmission, and storage
Imaging and modeling related to systems biology and systems biomedicine
Applied mathematics, applied physics, and chemistry related to biomedical imaging
Grid-enabling technology for biomedical imaging and informatics