Automatic fiducial localization in ultrasound images for a thermal ablation validation platform
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: Development of ultrasound-based tumor ablation monitoring systems requires extensive validation. Validation is based on the comparison of ablated regions, computed from ultrasound images, to the ground truth region observed on histopathology images. Registration of ultrasound and histopathology images can be efficiently implemented by localizing fiducial lines embedded in the test phantom. Manual fiducial localization is time consuming and may be inaccurate. Current automatic localization algorithms were designed for use on images containing easily detectable fiducials in clear water, while the images produced by the ablation monitoring platform contain fiducials and ablated tissue embedded in tissue-mimicking gel. Our goal was to develop an automatic fiducial localization algorithm for the ablation monitoring platform. METHOD: A previously existing algorithm for detecting fishing line in water for ultrasound probe calibration, created by Chen et al., was tested on ultrasound images of an ablation phantom. Fiducial and line point detection parameters were determined by running the algorithm multiple times with different parameter sets and searching for the set that results in the best detection success rate. The fiducial intensity scoring method was modified to use intensities from an unaltered image; this greatly reduced the number of incorrectly identified fiducials. Line finding was modified to suit the ablation phantom geometry. RESULTS: The new algorithm was tested by comparing the automatic localization results to manually identified fiducial positions. Using the optimized parameters, it was found to have a 94.1 % success rate on the tested images. Fiducial localization error was defined as the difference between the manually segmented positions and the positions found by the algorithm. Fiducial localization error was - 0.04±0.18mm along the x-axis, and -0.09±0.14mm along the y-axis. CONCLUSION: We have developed an automatic algorithm that detects line fiducials at a high success rate in complex phantoms containing a tissue sample embedded in tissue-mimicking gel.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".