Segmentation of parotid glands in head and neck CT images using a constrained active shape model with landmark uncertainty
Antong Chen, Jack H. Noble, Kenneth J. Niermann, Matthew A. Deeley, Benoît M. Dawant · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2012
Automatic segmentation of parotid glands in head and neck CT images for IMRT planning has drawn attention in recent years. Although previous approaches have achieved substantial success by reaching high overall volume-wise accuracy, suboptimal segmentations are observed on the interior boundary of the gland where the contrast is poor against the adjacent muscle groups. Herein we propose to use a constrained active shape model with landmark uncertainty to improve the segmentation in this area. Results obtained using this method are compared with results obtained using a regular active shape model through a leave-one-out experiment.