Automatic segmentation of three-dimensional liver structure from CT data

The segmentation and three-dimensional representation of the liver on a CT scan is an important step in the surgical planning for a living-donor liver transplantation. This paper reports on a method to automatically extract the liver structure from the abdominal CT scan using a priori information about liver morphologic features and digital image processing techniques. Liver donor abdominal CT scans were obtained with a GE 9800 scanner. Segmentation was performed sequentially, section by section, starting with a reference section in which the liver occupied almost the entire right half of the abdominal cross-section. The shape, size, and pixel intensity distribution of the liver were recorded for each section and were used in processing other sections