Improvement in automated detection of pulmonary nodules on helical x-ray CT images

We previously developed a scheme to automatically detect pulmonary nodules on CT images, as a part of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system. The proposed method consisted of two template-matching approaches based on simple models that simulate real nodules. One was a new template-matching technique based on a genetic algorithm (GA) template matching (GATM) for detecting nodules within the lung area. The other one was a conventional template matching along the lung wall [lung wall template matching (LWTM)] for detecting nodules on the lung wall. After the two template matchings, thirteen feature values were calculated and used for eliminating false positives. Twenty clinical cases involving a total of 557 sectional images were applied; 71 nodules out of 98 were correctly detected with the number of false positives at approximately 30.8/case by applying two template matchings (GATM and LWTM) and elimination process of false positives. In this study, five features were newly added, and threshold-values of our previous features were reconsidered for further eliminating false positives. As the result, the number of false positives was decreased to 5.5/case without elimination of true positives. Keywords: computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), computed tomography (CT), pulmonary nodule detection, template matching, genetic algorithm (GA), false positive elimination