Robust Automated Mouse Micro-CT Segmentation Using Swin UNEt TRansformers
2024

Automated Mouse Organ Segmentation Using Swin Transformers

Sample size: 28 publication 10 minutes Evidence: high

Author Information

Author(s): Jiang Lu, Xu Di, Xu Qifan, Chatziioannou Arion, Iwamoto Keisuke S., Hui Susanta, Sheng Ke

Primary Institution: University of California San Francisco

Hypothesis

Can Swin UNEt TRansformers effectively segment mouse organs in micro-CT scans compared to existing methods?

Conclusion

Swin UNETR outperforms existing models in segmenting mouse organs, demonstrating robustness across different imaging conditions.

Supporting Evidence

  • Swin UNETR consistently outperformed nnU-Net and AIMOS in terms of average dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and Hausdorff distance (HD95p).
  • The model showed superior performance in segmenting organs like the bladder, lungs, and liver.
  • Robustness was confirmed through testing on an independent dataset with different imaging protocols.
  • Manual segmentation was often inaccurate, highlighting the need for automated methods.

Takeaway

This study shows that a new computer program can help quickly and accurately outline mouse organs in images, which is important for medical research.

Methodology

The study used public and in-house micro-CT datasets to train and evaluate the Swin UNETR model against nnU-Net and AIMOS.

Potential Biases

Inter-observer variations in manual annotations could introduce bias in model training and evaluation.

Limitations

The study's datasets were limited to 28 mice, and all scans were conducted in a prone position, which may affect generalizability.

Participant Demographics

The study involved genetically homogeneous mice, specifically 28 mice used across various imaging conditions.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.3390/bioengineering11121255

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