Brain Tumor Detection from MR Images Employing Fuzzy Graph Cut Technique

Abstract

Background: This research aims at the accurate selection of the seed points from the brain MRI image for the detection of the tumor region. Since, the conventional way of manual seed selection leads to inappropriate tumor extraction therefore, fuzzy clustering technique is employed for the accurate seed selection for performing the segmentation through graph cut method. Methods: In the proposed method Fuzzy Kernel Seed Selection technique is used to define the complete brain MRI image into different groups of similar intensity. Among these groups the most accurate kernels are selected empirically that show highest resemblance with the tumor. The concept of fuzziness helps making the selection even at the boundary regions. Results: The proposed Fuzzy kernel selection technique is applied on the BraTS dataset. Among the four modalities, the proposed technique is applied on Flair images. This dataset consists of Low Grade Glioma (LGG) and High Grade Glioma (HGG) tumor images. The experiment is conducted on more than 40 images and validated by evaluating the following performance metrics: 1. Disc Similarity Coefficient (DSC), 2. Jaccard Index (JI) and 3. Positive Predictive Value (PPV). The mean DSC and PPV values obtained for LGG images are 0.89 and 0.87 respectively; and for HGG images it is 0.92 and 0.90 respectively. Conclusion: On comparing the proposed Fuzzy kernel selection graph cut technique approach with the existing techniques it is observed that the former provides an automatic accurate tumor detection. It is highly efficient and can provide a better performance for HGG and LGG tumor segmentation in clinical application.