A local level set method for liver segmentation in functional MR imaging

Functional Magnetic Resonance (fMR) is a medical image technique in which a contrast is injected in the vascular system so that blood diffusion along it can be observed as variations of the signal intensity. The uptake variations of the contrast agent are used in early detection of tumorous tissue. For the diagnostic to be accurate, successive volumes must be correctly registered. For binary registration prior segmentation of the 3D fMR data is required. Here we present a local 3D level-set segmentation method which preserves details and edges, along with its multi-scale version which has the advantage of a great acceleration with respect to the single-scale version. Results of liver segmentation of real fMR medical images are provided.