Monitoring nodule progression in chest X-ray images

Abstract

Lung nodules are frequently observed in cases of cancer. Nodules can be monitored with technologies such as computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However. x-ray imaging is a low-cost method as well as its widespread usage. In this context, monitoring the nodules in short intervals by x-ray imaging gives benefits in many aspects. In this study, a three-stage novel approach is proposed to trace the nodule progressions from the lung x-ray images, automatically. In the first stage, x-ray images of a patient taken at different times must be registered to evaluate the nodule progression. To perform the registration, feature extraction and matching methods are employed, and then the homography matrix is calculated. In the second stage, according to previously known nodule positions, matched nodules are detected on registered images. Mismatched nodules in the first image are considered as lost, while the nodules only found in the second image are evaluated as newly appeared. In the last stage, nodules are considered as closed contours consisting of pixel set where closed contour area is calculated after nodule matching process. In this way, growth and shrink states are determined numerically. To test the proposed approach, a patient data set provided by Baskent University, Department of Radiology is used. The validation of the test results is performed by an expert radiologist According to the results obtained, the presented nodule progression trace system is found promising.