Wavelet analysis in virtual colonoscopy

The computed tomographic colonography (CTC) computer aided detection (CAD) program is a new method in development to detect colon polyps in virtual colonoscopy. While high sensitivity is consistently achieved, additional features are desired to increase specificity. In this paper, a wavelet analysis was applied to CTCCAD outputs in an attempt to filter out false positive detections. 52 CTCCAD detection images were obtained using a screen capture application. 26 of these images were real polyps, confirmed by optical colonoscopy and 26 were false positive detections. A discrete wavelet transform of each image was computed with the MATLAB wavelet toolbox using the Haar wavelet at levels 1-5 in the horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions. From the resulting wavelet coefficients at levels 1-3 for all directions, a 72 feature vector was obtained for each image, consisting of descriptive statistics such as mean, variance, skew, and kurtosis at each level and orientation, as well as error statistics based on a linear predictor of neighboring wavelet coefficients. The vectors for each of the 52 images were then run through a support vector machine (SVM) classifier using ten-fold cross-validation training to determine its efficiency in distinguishing polyps from false positives. The SVM results showed 100% sensitivity and 51% specificity in correctly identifying the status of detections. If this technique were added to the filtering process of the CTCCAD polyp detection scheme, the number of false positive results could be reduced significantly.