Statistical-Based Tracking Technique for Linear Structures Detection: Application to Vessel Segmentation in Medical Images

Linear structures such as blood vessels in medical images are important features for computer-aided diagnosis and follow-up of many diseases. In this letter a new tracking-based segmentation method is proposed to detect blood vessels in retinal images. Bayesian segmentation with the Maximum
a posteriori
(MAP) Probability criterion is used for that purpose. Tests on simulated and retinal images are presented and compared with a vessel detection technique. Our method performs better results.