Registration-Based Morphing of Active Contours for Segmentation of CT Scans

We present a new algorithm for segmenting organs in CT scans for radiotherapy treatment planning. Given a contour of an organ that is segmented in one image, our algorithm proceeds to segment contours that identify the same organ in the consecutive images. Our technique combines partial diferential equations-based morphing active contours with algorithms for joint segmentation and registration. The coupling between these diferent techniques is done in order to deal with the complexity of segmenting "real" images, where boundaries are not always well defined, and the initial contour is not an isophote of the image.