Estimation of Necrosis Volumes in Focal Liver LesionsBased on Multi-phase Hepatic CT Images

摘要

This study presents a computer-aided volumety (CAV) scheme that estimates the necrosis volumes in the focal liver lesions based on the multi-phase hepatic CT images for estimation of liver tumor burden. We developed a CAV scheme that consisted of the following three major steps: registration of multi-phase series based upon the portal-venous phase images, modeling of the concentration-time curve and thus estimattion of the arterial and portal-venous blood flow, and segmentation of the necrotic and tumorous tissues. Sixteen hepatocellular carcinoma cases were used for the evaluation of the CAV scheme. The total blood volume distribution of the liver tissue, tumor, and necrosis was computed in these datasets. The blood volumes for the liver tissue, tumor, and necrosis had 0.250±0.129, 0.171±0.073, and 0.054±0.045 ml/sec, respectively. The CAV scheme was shown to be potentially useful for efficient and accurate longitudinal measurement of liver tumor burdens in hepatic CT images.