Computer-assistance has reached virtually every domain within the field of medical imaging. But, even after four decades of intensive medical image analysis research, most of the fully automated methods have not been adopted for clinical routine use. Dedicated computer aided-diagnosis tools with proven clinical impact exist for a narrow range of applications, including mammography and chest imaging, both x-ray and CT. Interestingly, neuroimaging is where many of the modern image analysis methods have pioneered, but also where computer-aided diagnosis in its narrower sense does not play a major role today. Clinically used tools rather relate to computer-supported delineation and quantification of brain lesions in CT and MRI, perfusion analysis from dynamic imaging, localized analysis of diffusion properties, reconstruction of white-matter tracts from a series of diffusion-weighted MR images, and quantification of brain atrophy. We provide an overview of quantitative image analysis techniques including their evaluation based on phantom and patient data, and discuss future prospects regarding dedicated computer-aided diagnosis in the brain.
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