Segmentation and reconstruction of the lung and the mediastinum volumes in CT images

An automated system is developed for lung and mediastinum segmentation in lung CT (Computed Tomography) images for the purpose of using these segmentations not only in CT images but also in PET (Positron Emission Tomography) images to exploit the useful integration of the CT and PET images performed by the highly valuable oncological equipment PET/CT. Segmentation is the most crucial step in a CAD (Computer-Aided Diagnosis) system as lung borders delimit the region inside which pathological areas are searched for, while mediastinum borders identify the region containing the lymph nodes used for staging and restaging phases. Our method consists of an appropriate combination of image processing techniques. It was tested on CT images with different attributes such as resolution and slice thickness, containing 47 cancerous areas. We achieved almost 90% and 100% correct segmentation for lung and mediastinum, respectively.