Fast Image Processing Approach for the Reliable Quantification of Intracranial Hematoma Volume in Brain CT Images

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a neurological condition that can cause severe physical and mental disabilities or death. One of the serious consequences of TBI is intracranial hematoma that can be diagnosed through early and proper analysis of the brain CT images. Proper estimation of hematoma volume is essential for envisaging the 30-day outcome. The Tada formula is the gold standard used by radiologists to quantify the hematoma volume in CT images which will provide accurate results only for symmetrical hematoma configurations. Manual volume assessment is further subjective and time-consuming, especially in real-time acute clinical care set-up. Hence a computer-aided scheme that uses image processing techniques for rapid, precise, and reliable assessment of hematoma volume is developed. The CT images are pre-processed using histogram equalization and gray matter is further extracted using thresholding and morphological operations. Then the hematoma regions are extracted using thresholding and the 3D hematoma volume for the entire CT scan is computed by multiplying the image width and the total area of hematoma in all CT images. The obtained hematoma volumes are clinically validated by radiologist and the proposed approach achieved an average accuracy of 89.51%. A 3D modeling of the hematoma regions in a CT scan was further generated to provide an extensive visual aid for improved hematoma interpretation and strategic analysis. The entire process of automated hematoma volume computation and generation of 3D volume in a CT scan took around 13 seconds using standalone system. The outcomes of the experiment show that the proposed method can be used as a medical support system for rapid and accurate diagnosis of hematoma.