Automatic bone segmentation technique for CT angiographic studies

Purpose: The purpose of this work was to develop and evaluate an automatic bone segmentation technique for CT angiographic studies. Method: An automatic bone segmentation scheme was developed and applied to 40 CT examinations. The results of the segmentation were evaluated subjectively by two radiologists. Results: The bone segmentation was, on average, rated between excellent and good. Automatic segmentation required similar to 25 s/case. Conclusion: With this high quality technique, bone can be segmented easily and accurately and subsequently can be removed from CT data sets for further 3D visualization and analysis of various organs.