Table of Contents:
Details of the VOLCAMAN'10 Study:
The focus of this study is change analysis
from manually determined volumetric assessment of pulmonary nodules
from CT images.
A previous challenge study (VOLCANO) has used this same data set to
evaluate change using computer algorithms.
The focus of this study is not
directly on the estimated volume of each lesion itself
(which tells us little of the underlying
disease) but rather the change in size of the lesion recorded on two
time-separated images. This size change is a critical measurement for
(a) diagnosing cancer and (b) evaluating response to therapy.
One of the most important indicators of malignancy is the
relative change in size of a nodule over time.
The critical issue for this study, s to establish the precision of
manually determined size change
measurement for nodules of varying size as well as other features.
Motivation for the Study
Current approaches to quantification of nodule volume change measurement
exhibit two main problems that complicate their direct comparison. First,
large unified database of both stable and growing
nodules are needed in order to perform these analysis.
Second, there is no single commonly used evaluation technique
that would assess the measurement quality of a particular method.
This unique study can address both of these issues by providing
a well-documented single evaluation image dataset and a common methodology
for assessing the quality of the measurement algorithm.
Further by analysis of results from a large number of participants
with a broad range of experience we will develop
a robust characterization of manual lesion marking behavior.
This data will be made publicly available as a reference benchmark for
both computer and manual marking methods.
This novel study that is entirely web-based will allow for a large number
of participants.
Analysis of the results will provide an expert characterization of a reference
set of images. These images, together with annotations from this study and
the results from the VOLCANO study
will be made publicly available as a benchmark to be used
by all researchers to advance the state of the art in lesion measurement.
Goals of the Study
To gain a better understanding of variability in manually determined
nodule volume measurements.
We will also obtain a benchmark set of well documented lesion pairs that
will be made publicly available to facilitate the quantitative evaluation
of future lesion marking methods.
Rules
Organization of this study and maintaining this website is a large effort.
We ask everyone who decides to participate in the study to read and
accept the following rules.
- All information entered during registration must be complete
and correct.
- Multiple registrations of the same participant is prohibited.
- When the study is completed all submitted data will be made publicly available on this website (all participants will be deidentified; that is, no participants name will be associated with any data elements).
- All submitted data may be used by the organizers for future research.
Data Description
The image data used in the study was acquired for the
Public Lung Database to to address drug response.
Cases were selected that contained at least one nodule of solid
consistency which was present in at least two scans with a whole-lung
field of view including the entire nodule. Only nodules visible on at
least three slices on both scans were included.
For the VOLCAMAN study two nodules are
used for training and 24 nodules are used in the evaluation dataset
Evaluation Dataset
The VOLCAMAN study involves 24 nodules selected from the VOLCANO
evaluation dataset.
The VOLCANO evaluation dataset consists of 49 nodules divided into three
categories. The first category consists of 27 nodules visible on two
scans of 1.25 mm slice thickness, with little observed size change,
and a range in diameter from approximately 4 - 24 mm.
The second category of nodules included 13 nodules
imaged on either two 2.5 mm scans or one 1.25 mm scan and one 2.5 or 5.0
mm scan to examine the effect of slice thickness on the size change
measurements.
The nodules ranged in size from approximately 8 – 30 mm. The third
category consists of an additional 9 nodules on two 1.25 mm scans, but
a large size change; these nodules ranged in size from approximately
5 – 14 mm.
These cases represent a cross-section of the nodule sizes that are of most interest from the diagnostic viewpoint. All cases were externally reviewed and determined to be of good quality.
The approximate size distribution of nodules in the
evaluation dataset is shown in the plot below:
The sizes used to produce this histogram are only estimates.
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