Abstract
Pleural effusion has a number of causes, such as cardiac failure, liver cirrhosis, pneumonia and cancer. When increased pleural fluid, pneumothorax or other intrapleural space-occupying lesions press on the bronchial tubes, they develop atelectasis in their peripheral areas. Both pleural fluid and atelectasis potentially cause dyspnea, with atelectasis causing a concurrence of pneumonia or other condition, necessitating early treatment. In conventional diagnosis using plain X-ray images, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between adjoining pleural fluid and compressive atelectasis regions. In this study, a method is proposed by which chest contrasting computed tomography images are used to differentiate regions of pleural fluid and compressive atelectasis from other regions and measure individually the volume of each region by semiautomatic processing. Quantification enables numerical assessment of the progress of the disease condition and of treatment. Lung air space region extraction, lung contour detection from rib information, and heart region removal are performed, the resulting images of pleural fluid and compressive atelectasis are subjected to close examination, and volumes of specific areas are measured. The results of verification using patient data suggested the effectiveness of quantitative measurement of specific areas using this method.
