Segmentation of osteosarcoma based on analysis of blood-perfusion EPI series

The treatment of osteosarcoma has suffered from the lack of the evaluation of the response of the tumor to chemotherapy. The main issue is that osteosarcoma does not shrink in response to chemotherapy; instead, viable tumor is replaced by necrotic tissue. To distinguish the portions within the osteosarcoma accurately, a new segmentation method based on the analysis of blood-perfusion EPI MRI series is proposed in this article. A similarity mapping method is used to analyze blood-perfusion EPI MRI series, and a watershed method with specific preprocessing is included to do the segmentation. A segmentation result of this method to a patient is shown and compared with the result of the surgery.