Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT), a kind of face and neck exams can be opportunity to identify, as an incidental finding, calcifications of the carotid artery (CACA). Given the similarity of the CACA with calcification found in several x-ray exams, this work suggests that a similar technique designed to detect breast calcifications in mammography images could be applied to detect such calcifications in CBCT. The method used a 3D version of the calcification detection technique [1], based on a signal enhancement using a convolution with a 3D Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) function followed by removing the high contrast bone structure from the image. Initial promising results show a 71% sensitivity with 0.48 false positive per exam.

Date Published: 3 March 2017
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 10134, Medical Imaging 2017: Computer-Aided Diagnosis, 101344E (3 March 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2255568

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10134:
Medical Imaging 2017: Computer-Aided Diagnosis
Samuel G. Armato III; Nicholas A. Petrick, Editor(s)