Visual Enhancement for Sentinel Lymph Node Mapping in Breast Cancer by Multiple Display Formats of SPECT/CT Images

Lymph node status is a main factor in determining the stage, suitable therapy and outcome in patients with breast cancer. It is therefore of clinical importance to accurately identify all sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) for each individual tumor before surgery. Composite Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography and Computed Tomography (SPECT/CT) scanner has the great potential to enhance topographic orientation and diagnostic sensitivity of SLN imaging. In this paper, a visual enhancement of sentinel lymph node mapping in breast cancer of SPECT/CT images was proposed. Our approach is based on the isodata histogram thresholding, image fusion, and 3-dimensional (3D) volume rendering. By improving the visual impression of SPECT/CT images, it is useful to help surgeons to precisely locate all SLNs in patients with breast cancer.