Automated detection of polyps in CT colonography images using deep learning algorithms in colon cancer diagnosis

Colon cancer is cancer that is present on the inner side of colon walls or the rectum walls in the large intestine. Most of these types of cancer begin as abnormal growth of tissue called as polyp. Colonography uses low dose radiation Computed tomography (CT) scanning to obtain an interior view of the colon making use of special x-ray machine to view the large intestine for cancer and abnormal growths known as polyps. Radiologists examine these images to find polyp like structure using computer tools. As CT Colonography image contain noise such as lungs, small intestine, instruments during image capturing; segmenting colon from noise is the key task. Polyp occurrence can be detected mainly using shape feature; eliminating shapes similar to polyp is challenging. Hence, to tackle above issues, Image processing techniques are used by applying deep learning algorithm - Convolution Neural Network (CNN) and the results are compared with classical machine learning algorithm. In proposed method, each image is pre-processed to filter air filled dark region that includes colon, lungs etc. Next, each pre-processed CT Image separated into fixed number of blocks. Using pre-trained CNN, each block of ROI is classified as Type 1 (Usually Ascending and descending colon), Type 2 (Usually Traversal and sigmoidal colon) and Type3 (Noise such as lungs, instruments) to segment colon blocks by eliminating noise. Classified Blocks is further diagnosed for polyp like structure using pre-trained CNN by classifying each colon block as normal or abnormal. The experiment is setup with classical machine learning algorithms - Random Forest (RF) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) by extracting texture feature - Local binary pattern (LBP) and shape feature - Histogram oriented gradient (HOG) for comparison. The experiment results showed the accuracy of proposed method for colon segmentation using CNN (87%) outperforms RF (85%) and KNN (83%). In, addition, the polyp detection accuracy of CNN (88%) is better than Random forest (85%) and KNN (80%). Hence, in the proposed method, there is significant accuracy improvement using deep learning algorithm compared to classical machine learning algorithms. It also provide baseline for automated colon cancer diagnosis using Deep learning algorithms for further research.