Pneumoconiosis is an occupational respiratory disease caused by inhaling dust into the lungs. In Japan, 240,000 people undergo pneumoconiosis screening every year. X-rays are used worldwide to classify the severity of pneumoconiosis. It is important to distinguish between type 0/1 and type 1/0, which are eligible for recognition of occupational injury. CT images are expected to provide more accurate diagnosis because they can be confirmed in three dimensions compared to X-rays. We extract micro-nodules from 3D CT images for each severity of pneumoconiosis, and analyze and evaluate the number, size, position and CT values of micro-nodules in each lung lobe.
Pneumoconiosis is an occupational respiratory disease caused by inhaling dust into the lungs. In Japan, 240,000 people undergo pneumoconiosis screening every year. X-rays are used worldwide to classify the severity of pneumoconiosis. It is important to distinguish between stage 0/1 and stage 1/0, which are eligible for recognition of occupational injury. CT images are expected to provide more accurate diagnosis because they can be confirmed in three dimensions compared to X-rays. We extract micro-nodules from 3D CT images for each severity of pneumoconiosis, and analyze and evaluate the number, size, and CT values of micro-nodules in each lung lobe.
Pneumoconiosis is an occupational respiratory illness that occur by inhaling dust to the lungs. 240,000 participants are screened for diagnosis of pneumoconiosis every year in Japan. Radiograph is used for staging of severity rate in pneumoconiosis worldwide. CT imaging is useful for the differentiation of requirements for industrial accident approval because it can detect small lesions in comparison with radiograph. In this paper, we extracted lung nodules from 3D pneumoconiosis CT images by two manual processes and automatic process, and created a database of pneumoconiosis CT images. We used the database to analyze, compare, and evaluate visual diagnostic results of radiographs and quantitative assessment (number, size and volume) of lung nodules. This method was applied to twenty pneumoconiosis patients. Initial results showed that the proposed method can assess severity rate in pneumoconiosis quantitatively. This study demonstrates effectiveness on diagnosis and prognosis of pneumoconiosis in CT screening.
240,000 participants have a screening for diagnosis of pneumoconiosis every year in Japan. Radiograph is used for staging of severity in pneumoconiosis worldwide. This paper presents a method for quantitative assessment of severity in pneumoconiosis using both size and frequency of lung nodules that detected by thin-section CT images. This method consists of three steps. First, thoracic organs (body, ribs, spine, trachea, bronchi, lungs, heart, and pulmonary blood vessels) are segmented. Second, lung nodules that have radius over 1.5mm are detected. These steps used functions of our developed computer aided detection system of chest CT images. Third, severity in pneumoconiosis is quantified using size and frequency of lung nodules. This method was applied to nine pneumoconiosis patients. The initial results showed that proposed method can assess severity in pneumoconiosis quantitatively. This paper demonstrates effectiveness of our method in diagnosis and prognosis of pneumoconiosis in CT screening.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.