Longitudinal in-vivo volumetry study for porcine liver regeneration from CT data

The use of hepatic-like cloned cord lining epithelial cells (CLEC) to enhance liver regeneration has been proposed, but has not been properly investigated in a large animal study. The paper presents a system developed for the longitudinal in-vivo volumetry study on porcine liver regeneration from computed tomography (CT) data. In this system, a rough 3D liver volume is firstly automatically segmented by a 3D mesh deformation-based method. Then a refinement step to eliminate the segmentation error is carried out by a 3D post-editing tool, followed by mesh-volume conversion and volume calculation. This system was applied in a pilot study, which was composed of 4/4 pigs in the Experimental/Control Groups, to measure liver volumes over pre- to post-operative time course. Experimental results suggest that (1) the developed system can perform CT-based porcine liver volumetry efficiently, and (2) the infusion of CLEC to liver remnant may potentially enhance the liver regeneration.