Automatic prostate segmentation using fused ultrasound B-mode and elastography images.

In this paper we propose a fully automatic 2D prostate segmentation algorithm using fused ultrasound (US) and elastography images. We show that the addition of information from mechanical tissue properties acquired from elastography to acoustic information from B-mode ultrasound, can improve segmentation results. Gray level edge similarity and edge continuity in both US and elastography images deform an Active Shape Model. Comparison of automatic and manual contours on 107 transverse images of the prostate show a mean absolute error of 2.6 +/- 0.9 mm and a running time of 17.9 +/- 12.2 s. These results show that the combination of the high contrast elastography images with the more detailed but low contrast US images can lead to very promising results for developing an automatic 3D segmentation algorithm.