62 Int. J. Bio-Inspired Computation, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Cavitary nodule segmentation in computed
tomography images based on self-generating neural
networks and particle swarm optimisation
Juan-juan Zhao* and Guo-hua Ji
College of Computer Science and Technology,
Taiyuan University of Technology,
Shanxi, 030024, China
Email: zhaojuanjuan@tyut.edu.cn
Email: 1210151314@qq.com
*Corresponding author
Yong Xia
School of Computer Science,
Northwestern Polytechnical University,
Shaanxi, 710072, China
Email: yxia@nwpu.edu.cn
Xiao-long Zhang
College of Information Sciences and Technology,
Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA
Email: zxl_psu@foxmail.com
Abstract: Lung nodule segmentation is an important pre-processing step for analysis of solitary
pulmonary nodules in computed tomography (CT) imaging. However, the previous nodule
segmentation methods cannot segment the cavitary nodules entirely. To address this problem, an
automated segmentation method based on self-generating neural networks and particle swarm
optimisation (PSO) is proposed to ensure the integrity of cavitary nodule segmentation. Our
segmentation method first roughly segments the image using a general region-growing method.
Thereafter, the PSO-self-generating neural forest (SGNF)-based classification algorithm is used
to cluster regions. Finally, grey and geometric features are utilised to identify the nodular region.
Experimental results show that our method can achieve an average pixel overlap ratio of 88.9%
compared with manual segmentation results. Moreover, compared with existing methods, this
algorithm has higher segmentation precision and accuracy for cavitary nodules.
Keywords: particle swarm optimisation; PSO; self-generating neural network; clustering; nodule
segmentation; cavitary nodule.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Zhao, J-j., Ji, G-h., Xia, Y. and Zhang, X-l.
(2015) ‘Cavitary nodule segmentation in computed tomography images based on self-generating
neural networks and particle swarm optimisation’, Int. J. Bio-Inspired Computation, Vol. 7,
No. 1, pp.62–67.
Biographical notes: Juan-juan Zhao is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer
Science and Technology at Taiyuan University of Technology (TYUT), China. She received her
PhD in Computer Application Technology from TYUT in 2010. Her current research interests
are in medical image processing and the internet of things.
Guo-hua Ji received her BD in Computer Science and Technology from the China University of
Mining and Technology in 2013. She is currently pursuing her MD in the area of image
processing at TYUT.
Yong Xia is currently a Professor in the School of Computer Science at Northwestern
Polytechnical University (NWPU). He received his PhD from NWPU in 2007. His current
research interests lie in medical imaging and multimedia information processing.
Xiao-long Zhang received his PhD in School of Information from University of Michigan in
2003. He is an Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania
State University. His research interests are in interactive technologies and the design of
interactive tools to support visually-guided navigation.