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In this paper, we propose to use 4D graph cuts for the segmentation of large spatio-temporal (4D) datasets. Indeed, as 4D datasets grow in popularity in many clinical areas, so will the demand for efficient general segmentation algorithms. The graph cuts method1 has become a leading method for complex 2D and 3D image segmentation in many applications. Despite a few attempts2-5in 4D, the use of graph cuts on typical medical volume quickly exceeds today's computer capacities. Among all existing graph cuts based methods6-10 the multilevel banded graph cuts9is the fastest and uses the least amount of memory. Nevertheless, this method has its limitation. Memory becomes an issue when using large 4D volume sequences, and small structures become hardly recoverable when using narrow bands. We thus improve the boundary refinement efficiency by using a 4D competitive region growing. First, we construct a coarse graph at a low resolution with strong temporal links to prevent the shrink bias inherent to the graph cuts method. Second, we use a competitive region growing using a priority queue to capture all fine details. Leaks are prevented by constraining the competitive region growing within a banded region and by adding a viscosity term. This strategy yields results comparable to the multilevel banded graph cuts but is faster and allows its application to large 4D datasets. We applied our method on both cardiac 4D MRI and 4D CT datasets with promising results.

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a deformity of the spine manifested by asymmetry and deformities of the external surface of the trunk. Classification of scoliosis deformities according to curve type is used to plan management of scoliosis patients. Currently, scoliosis curve type is determined based on X-ray exam. However, cumulative exposure to X-rays radiation significantly increases the risk for certain cancer. In this paper, we propose a robust system that can classify the scoliosis curve type from non invasive acquisition of 3D trunk surface of the patients. The 3D image of the trunk is divided into patches and local geometric descriptors characterizing the surface of the back are computed from each patch and forming the features. We perform the reduction of the dimensionality by using Principal Component Analysis and 53 components were retained. In this work a multi-class classifier is built with Least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) which is a kernel classifier. For this study, a new kernel was designed in order to achieve a robust classifier in comparison with polynomial and Gaussian kernel. The proposed system was validated using data of 103 patients with different scoliosis curve types diagnosed and classified by an orthopedic surgeon from the X-ray images. The average rate of successful classification was 93.3% with a better rate of prediction for the major thoracic and lumbar/thoracolumbar types.