Improving manual tractography by automating spurious streamline removal: an application in paediatric tumour patients

Motivation: Probabilistic tractography frequently generates false-positive streamlines, requiring time-intensive expert manual editing, complicating its use for pre-surgical planning Goal(s): To evaluate Purifibre, a novel automated method for removing false-positive streamlines as an alternative to manual editing. Approach: Purifibre was applied to 14 paediatric brain tumour cases, with performance evaluated against manual edits, both visually and based on Dice similarity scores. Results: Purifibre achieved a mean Dice score of 0.87 compared to manually-edited tracts, indicating its high accuracy and effectiveness. Impact: Purifibre, a novel automated method for removing false-positive streamlines, significantly reduces the time needed for manual tract editing. This tool enhances the feasibility of applying probabilistic tractography for pre-surgical planning in tumour cases, especially when pathology disrupts typical streamline structure.