Automated method for extraction of lung tumors using a machine learning classifier with knowledge of radiation oncologists on data sets of planning CT and FDG-PET/CT images

We have developed an automated method for extraction of lung tumors using a machine learning classifier with knowledge of radiation oncologists on data sets of treatment planning computed tomography (CT) and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET)/CT images. First, the PET images were registered with the treatment planning CT images through the diagnostic CT images of PET/CT. Second, six voxel-based features including voxel values and magnitudes of image gradient vectors were derived from each voxel in the planning CT and PET /CT image data sets. Finally, lung tumors were extracted by using a support vector machine (SVM), which learned 6 voxel-based features inside and outside each true tumor region determined by radiation oncologists. The results showed that the average DSCs for 3 and 6 features for three cases were 0.744 and 0.899, and thus the SVM may need 6 features to learn the distinguishable characteristics. The proposed method may be useful for assisting treatment planners in delineation of the tumor region.