A Distance-Based Loss for Smooth and Continuous Skin Layer Segmentation in Optoacoustic Images

Stefan Gerl, Johannes C. Paetzold, Hailong He, Ivan Ezhov, Suprosanna Shit, Florian Kofler, Amirhossein Bayat, Giles Tetteh, Vasilis Ntziachristos, Bjoern Menze

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Raster-scan optoacoustic mesoscopy (RSOM) is a powerful, non-invasive optical imaging technique for functional, anatomical, and molecular skin and tissue analysis. However, both the manual and the automated analysis of such images are challenging, because the RSOM images have very low contrast, poor signal to noise ratio, and systematic overlaps between the absorption spectra of melanin and hemoglobin. Nonetheless, the segmentation of the epidermis layer is a crucial step for many downstream medical and diagnostic tasks, such as vessel segmentation or monitoring of cancer progression. We propose a novel, shape-specific loss function that overcomes discontinuous segmentations and achieves smooth segmentation surfaces while preserving the same volumetric Dice and IoU. Further, we validate our epidermis segmentation through the sensitivity of vessel segmentation. We found a 20% improvement in Dice for vessel segmentation tasks when the epidermis mask is provided as additional information to the vessel segmentation network.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMedical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2020 - 23rd International Conference, Proceedings
EditorsAnne L. Martel, Purang Abolmaesumi, Danail Stoyanov, Diana Mateus, Maria A. Zuluaga, S. Kevin Zhou, Daniel Racoceanu, Leo Joskowicz
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages309-319
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9783030597245
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020
Event23rd International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2020 - Lima, Peru
Duration: 4 Oct 20208 Oct 2020

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12266 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference23rd International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2020
Country/TerritoryPeru
CityLima
Period4/10/208/10/20

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