Bent rate based bladder abnormality enhancement with application to MR cystography

Bladder cancer is reported to be the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Detection of the bladder abnormalities at the early stage is essential for the treatment of bladder cancer. Currently, cystoscopy is believed to be the most accurate diagnostic procedure for bladder abnormality detection, despite it is invasive, expensive, and uncomfortable with limited field-of-view (FOV). Recent advances in medical imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, make virtual cystoscopy a potential alternative with advantages as being a safe and non-invasive method for evaluation of the entire bladder and detection of abnormalities. The purpose of this work is to present a method for bladder abnormality enhancement, which uses the bent rate to measure the protrusion on the inner border of bladder wall in different scale space. The method is applied to two T1-weighted MR datasets from a volunteer and a patient respectively. The results are encouraging. ICIC International