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A new method that automatically detects and segments brain tumors in 3D MR images is presented. An initial detection is performed by a fuzzy possibilistic clustering technique and morphological operations, while a deformable model is used to achieve a precise segmentation. This method has been successfully applied on five 3D images with tumors of different sizes and different locations, showing that the combination of region-based and contour-based methods improves the segmentation of brain tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD), a malformation of cortical development, is an important cause of medically intractable epilepsy. FCD lesions are difficult to distinguish from non-lesional cortex and their delineation on MRI is a challenging task. This paper presents a method to segment FCD lesions on T1-weighted MRI, based on a 3D deformable model, implemented using the level set framework. The deformable model is driven by three MRI features: cortical thickness, relative intensity and gradient. These features correspond to the visual characteristics of FCD and allow to differentiate lesions from normal tissues. The proposed method was tested on 18 patients with FCD and its performance was quantitatively evaluated by comparison with the manual tracings of two trained raters. The validation showed that the similarity between the level set segmentation and the manual labels is similar to the agreement between the two human raters. This new approach may become a useful tool for the presurgical evaluation of patients with intractable epilepsy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]