Peripheral nerve segmentation using Nonparametric Bayesian Hierarchical Clustering

Several cases related to chronic pain, due to accidents, illness or surgical interventions, depend on anesthesiology procedures. These procedures are assisted with ultrasound images. Although, the ultrasound images are a useful instrument in order to guide the specialist in anesthesiology, the lack of intelligibility due to speckle noise, makes the clinical intervention a difficult task. In a similar manner, some artifacts are introduced in the image capturing process, challenging the expertise of anesthesiologists for not confusing the true nerve structures. Accordingly, an assistance methodology using image processing can improve the accuracy in the anesthesia practice. This paper proposes a peripheral nerve segmentation method in medical ultrasound images, based on Nonparametric Bayesian Hierarchical Clustering. The experimental results show segmentation performances with a Mean Squared Error performance of 1.026 ± 0.379 pixels for ulnar nerve, 0.704 ± 0.233 pixels for median nerve and 1.698 ± 0.564 pixels for peroneal nerve. Likewise, the model allows to emphasize other soft structures like muscles and aqueous tissues, that might be useful for an anesthesiologist.