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Human Airway Analysis

Jaesung Lee

The airway dimensions are affected by pulmanary diseases such as COPD. Measuring segmental dimensions of airways with high confidence may enable clinicians to better diagnose diseases as well as monitor progression and response to treatment.

The goal of this work is to implement a fully automated airway analysis system for whole-lung CT scans. Our focus is on investigating and improving the precision of the automated airway measurements for both lumen diameter and wall thickness. Precise measurement of airway dimensions will be highly useful for detecting unusual changes in airway appearance.

Our algorithm automatically identifies individual airway segment and model each one using a well-defined model. By taking the model-based approach, we can analyze the airway segments of any shape and orientations.

Our study using 14 CT scan pairs [Lee, RSNA08] showed that the lumen diameter can be measured within the precision of +/-0.8mm, and the wall thickness can be measured within the precision of +/-0.5mm. Using the same dataset, we also evaluated the precision in measuring overall airway dimensions within individual patients. [Lee, SPIE08] The overall measures in individual patients the lumen diameter can be measured precisely within +/-0.5mm , and the wall thickness can be measured mmwithin +/-0.15mm.


Presentations and Publications

  1. J. Lee, A. P. Reeves, D. F. Yankelevitz, and C. I. Henschke. Bronchial Segment Matching in Low-dose Lung CT Scan Pairs. SPIE Medical Imaging, Feb 2009.
  2. J. Lee, A. P. Reeves, D. F. Yankelevitz, and C. I. Henschke. Assessment of Airway Dimensions in Low-dose CT. RSNA 94th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, Nov 2008.
  3. J. Lee, A. P. Reeves, D. F. Yankelevitz, and C. I. Henschke. Skewness Reduction Approach for Measuring Airway Wall Thickness. International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, vol. 3, pp. S50-S52, June 2008.
  4. J. Lee, A. P. Reeves, S. Fotin, T. Apanasovich, and D. F. Yankelevitz. Human Airway Measurement from CT Images. Proceedings of SPIE Medical Imaging, vol. 6915, pp. 691518, Feb 2008.
  5. J. Lee, A. P. Reeves, S. Fotin, T. Apanasovich, D. F. Yankelevitz, and C. I. Henschke. Precision of Automated Airway Measurements in CT Images. RSNA 93rd Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, Nov. 2007.


List of Current Research Projects