Improved False Positive Reduction by Novel Morphological Features for Computer-Aided Polyp Detection in CT Colonography

Computer-aided detection (CAD) systems can assist radiologists in reducing the interpretation time and improving the detection results in computed tomographic colonography (CTC). However, existing false positives (FPs) impair the advantages of CAD systems. This study aims to develop new morphological features for the FP reduction while maintaining high detection sensitivity. Volumetric feature maps are computed for each polyp candidate by using three-dimensional (3-D) geodesic distance transformation, circular transformation (CcT), and quantized convergence index (QCI) filters. Then, new morphological features are developed based on the curvature, fractal dimension, and volumetric feature maps. To the best of our knowledge, we are also the first to develop 3-D CcT and QCI filters specifically for colonic polyps. The new morphological features were evaluated to reduce the FPs by using 456 oral contrast-enhanced CT scans from 228 patients with 130 polyps ≥5 mm. For comparison, the well-defined features from our previous work were used to generate a baseline reference. The additional use of the new morphological features reduced the FP rate from 4.2 to 2.0 FPs per scan (i.e., 52.4% FP reduction percentage) at 96.2% by-polyp sensitivity and from 4.5 to 2.1 FPs per scan (i.e., 53.3% FP reduction percentage) at 93.9% per-scan sensitivity for polyps ≥5 mm. Experimental results indicate that the new morphological features can effectively reduce the FP rate without sacrificing detection sensitivity. We believe that the newly developed morphological features would advance the CAD systems to assist radiologists in interpreting CTC images.