An Interactive Segmentation Algorithm
for Thyroid Nodules in Ultrasound Images
Waleed M.H. Alrubaidi
1
,BoPeng
1(&)
, Yan Yang
1
, and Qin Chen
2
1
School of Information Science and Technology,
Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
bpeng@swjtu.edu.cn
2
Department of Ultrasound, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital,
Chengdu 610072, China
Abstract. Thyroid disease is extremely common and of concern because of the
risk of malignancies and hyper-function and they may become malignant if not
diagnosed at the right time. Ultrasound is one of the most often used methods for
thyroid nodule detection. However, node detection is very difficult in ultrasound
images due to their flaming nature and low quality. In this paper, an algorithm
for the formalization of the contour of the nodule using the variance reduction
statistic is proposed where cut points are determined, then a method of selecting
the nearest neighbor points which form the shape of the nodule is generated,
later B-spline method is applied to improve the accuracy of the curve shape. The
extracted results are been compared with graph_cut and watershed methods for
efficiency. Experiments show that the algorithm can improve the accuracy of the
appearance of modality and maximum significance of data in the images is also
protected.
Keywords: Thyroid nodules
Nodule detection B_spline curves
VR-Statistics
1 Introduction
The thyroid is a small gland located near the bottom of the neck. It produces hormones
that affect heart rate, cholesterol level, body weight, energy level, mental state and a
host of other conditions. Epidemiologic studies have shown that palpable thyroid
nodules occur in approximately seven percent of the population, but nodules found
incidentally on ultrasonography suggest prevalence up to 67 percent [1]. Thyroid
nodules are abnormal lumps growing within the thyroid gland which may represent
various different conditions including cancer. The risk of developing a palpable thyroid
nodule in a lifetime ranges between 5 and 10 % while 50 % of people with solitary
nodules detected by experienced physicians have additional nodules detected when
further examined by ultrasonography [2]. Ultrasound imaging (US) can be used to
detect thyroid nodules that are clinically occult due to their size or shape. However, the
interpretation of US images, as performed by the experts, is still subjective. An image
analysis scheme for computer aided detection of thyroid nodules would contribute to
the objectification of the US interpretation and the reduct ion of the misdiagnosis rates.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
D.-S. Huang et al. (Eds.): ICIC 2016, Part III, LNAI 9773, pp. 107–115, 2016.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-42297-8_11