A Novel Brain Tumor Segmentation from Multi-Modality MRI via A Level-Set-Based Model

Segmentation of brain tumor from magnetic resonance imaging is a challenging and time-consuming task due to the unpredictable appearance of tumor tissue in practical applications. In this paper we propose a novel level-set-based model for tumor segmentation from multi-modality magnetic resonance imaging. We formulate the tumor segmentation on pixel-level with three classes: tumor, edema and healthy tissue. First, we detect abnormal regions by using a region-based active contour model on T2-weighted images with fluid-attenuated inversion recovery modality, and a variational level set formulation is applied locally to approximate the image intensities on two sides of the contour. In the second stage, we distinguish the edema and tumor tissues in the abnormal regions based on the contrast enhancement T1 modality. Compared with traditional one-modality methods, our model can better represent the specific tissue of tumor in a simple way. The validation experiments on synthetic and clinical brain magnetic resonance images demonstrate the effectiveness and simplicity of the proposed method for brain tumor segmentation.