A Review of Image Segmentation Methods for Lung Nodule Detection Based on Computed Tomography Images

Abstract

The detection and segmentation of lung nodules based on computer tomography images (CT) is a basic and significant step to achieve the robotic needle biopsy. In this paper, we reviewed some typical segmentation algorithms, including thresholding, active contour, differential operator, region growing and watershed. To analyse their performance on lung nodule detection, we applied them to four CT images of different kinds of lung nodules. The results show that thresholding, active contour and differential operator do well in the segmentation of solitary nodules, while region growing has an advantage over the others on segmenting nodules adhere to vessels. For segmentation of semi-transparent nodules, differential operator is an especially suitable choice. Watershed can segment nodules adhere to vessels and semi-transparent nodules well, but it has low sensitivity in solitary nodules.