3D Surface-based Detection of Pleural Thickenings

Abstract

Pleuramesothelioma is a malignant tumor of the pleura. It evolves from pleural thickenings which are a typical long-term effect of asbestos exposure. A diagnosis is performed by examining CT scans acquired from the patient’s lung. The analysis of the image data is a very time-consuming task and is subject to strong inter- and intra-reader variances. To objectivize the analysis and to speed-up the diagnosis a full automatic system is developed. An essential step in this process is to identify potential thickenings. In this paper we describe the complete system in brief, and then take a closer look on thickening detection. A CT slice based approach is presented here. It is extended by using 3D knowledge of thelung surface which could scarcely have been acquired visually.