Automatic segmentation of head and neck primary tumors on MRI using a multi-view CNN

• Published in: Cancer imaging 2022-01, Vol.22 (1), p.8-8, Article 8
• Main Authors: Schouten, Jens P E, Noteboom, Samantha, Martens, Roland M, Mes, Steven W, Leemans, C René, de Graaf, Pim, Steenwijk, Martijn D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cancer; Cancer therapies; Chemotherapy; Classification; Datasets; Deep learning; Head & neck cancer; Head and Neck Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging; Head and neck squamous cell cancer; Humans; Image contrast; Image enhancement; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Image segmentation; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; MRI; Multi-view convolutional neural network; Neural networks; Radiation therapy; Radiotherapy; Registration; Scanners; Segmentation; Tomography; Tumor Burden; Tumors
• ISSN: 1470-7330; 1740-5025; 1470-7330
• DOI: 10.1186/s40644-022-00445-7

BACKGROUND : Accurate segmentation of head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC) is important for radiotherapy treatment planning. Manual segmentation of these tumors is time-consuming and vulnerable to inconsistencies between experts, especially in the complex head and neck region. The aim of this study is to introduce and evaluate an automatic segmentation pipeline for HNSCC using a multi-view CNN (MV-CNN). The dataset included 220 patients with primary HNSCC and availability of T1-weighted, STIR and optionally contrast-enhanced T1-weighted MR images together with a manual reference segmentation of the primary tumor by an expert. A T1-weighted standard space of the head and neck region was created to register all MRI sequences to. An MV-CNN was trained with these three MRI sequences and evaluated in terms of volumetric and spatial performance in a cross-validation by measuring intra-class correlation (ICC) and dice similarity score (DSC), respectively. The average manual segmented primary tumor volume was 11.8±6.70 cm with a median [IQR] of 13.9 [3.22-15.9] cm . The tumor volume measured by MV-CNN was 22.8±21.1 cm with a median [IQR] of 16.0 [8.24-31.1] cm . Compared to the manual segmentations, the MV-CNN scored an average ICC of 0.64±0.06 and a DSC of 0.49±0.19. Improved segmentation performance was observed with increasing primary tumor volume: the smallest tumor volume group (15 cm ) a DSC of 0.63±0.11 (p