Brain tumor segmentation by integrating symmetric property with region growing approach

Brain tumor segmentation is an important procedure for early diagnosis of brain tumor and planning of its treatment. However it is still a difficult task due to variations in size, shape and location of tumor. In this paper, we propose a novel brain tumor segmentation method using T2-weighted brain MR images by integrating symmetry property of brain with region growing approach. Bilateral symmetry property of brain is used in our method to identify various regions having probability of presence of the tumor. Identification of exact tumor location and its segmentation is then performed by using region growing technique. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of proposed approach was performed and promising results have been demonstrated when compared with ground truth and other state of art method. The segmented tumor region obtained in our work can assist the doctors and radiologist in the diagnosis of brain tumor and treatment planning.