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Automated Catheter Tip Detection from Chest Radiographs
Brad Keller (Alumnus) Catheters are synthetic tubing inserted within body cavities in order to inject or drain fluids or to allow access by surgical instruments. They are most commonly seen intensive care units (ICU). Often portable chest radiography is performed in order to verify correct placement. This is a critical step, as misplacement can lead to complications or death. Although chest radiographs are often looked at by medical personnel, they are still hard to interpret and mark. Determining the location of catheters in larger patients is much more difficult due to signal attenuation, as the appearance of the catheter is minimized. Catheter orientation and location (such as clustered catheters, catheters which intersect and/or run overlapping to one another, and catheter tip which overlaps another catheters path) also can cause confusion for the human observer. Lastly, projection images have no reference gray levels, and catheters may appear to have various intensities in different locations of chest radiographs.
This research looks to take advantage of the synthetic nature of catheters in
order to model them a priori. The models would then be used to track the
catheters length from a point outside the body were it is highly visible versus
background to the tip residing in the body. More information on the tracking
method can be found in the following paper: |