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Sensitivity and reproducibility of a new fast 3D segmentation technique for clinical MR-based brain volumetry in multiple sclerosis

  • Diagnostic Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Fast, reliable and easy-to-use methods to quantify brain atrophy are of increasing importance in clinical studies on neuro-degenerative diseases. Here, ILAB 4, a new volumetry software that uses a fast semi-automated 3D segmentation of thin-slice T1-weighted 3D MR images based on a modified watershed transform and an automatic histogram analysis was evaluated. It provides the cerebral volumes: whole brain, white matter, gray matter and intracranial cavity. Inter- and intra-rater reliability and scan-rescan reproducibility were excellent in measuring whole brain volumes (coefficients of variation below 0.5%) of volunteers and patients. However, gray and white matter volumes were more susceptible to image quality. High accuracy of the absolute volume results (±5 ml) were shown by phantom and preparation measurements. Analysis times were 6 min for processing of 128 slices. The proposed technique is reliable and highly suitable for quantitative studies of brain atrophy, e.g., in multiple sclerosis.

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Notes

  1. ILAB4 has been developed in C++ and runs on standard PC hardware (PIII 1GHz, 512 MB RAM) under Microsoft Windows. However, its successor MeVisLAB, will be available for both Windows and Linux. If you are interested in using ILAB and/or the brain volumetry package within a scientific collaboration, please contact MeVis at: Fax. +49-421-2184236, e-mail: ilab4@mevis.de.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to extend our thanks to Prof. Dr. Monika von Düring from the Institute of Neuroanatomy at the Ruhr University Bochum for her support concerning the anatomical preparations, to Florian Link for his outstanding work on ILAB4 and to Prof. Dr. Burckhard Terwey for his support during the early phase of the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University, Gudrunstr. 56, 44791, Bochum, Germany

    Carsten Lukas, Barbara Bellenberg, Sebastian K. Schimrigk & Horst Przuntek

  2. MeVis, Center for Medical Diagnostic Systems and Visualization, Universitätsallee 29, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Horst K. Hahn, Jan Rexilius & Heinz-Otto Peitgen

  3. Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University, Gudrunstr. 56, 44791, Bochum, Germany

    Gebhard Schmid & Odo Köster

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  1. Carsten Lukas
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Correspondence to Carsten Lukas.

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Lukas, C., Hahn, H.K., Bellenberg, B. et al. Sensitivity and reproducibility of a new fast 3D segmentation technique for clinical MR-based brain volumetry in multiple sclerosis. Neuroradiology 46, 906–915 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-004-1282-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-004-1282-3

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