[vtkusers] about volume rendering in medicine.

[J. Zhou]

Thank you very much for your useful information.

About volume rendering, I want to know how to make sure that the user really gets the right 
object information what he wants to see. What makes user understand whether he has 
gotten the right object information in volume rendering? And another critical problem is how 
to make sure that the user does not miss the object information he wants to see based on 
current settings (e.g. transfer functions) during volume rendering. 

Thank you!

J. Zhou


> 
> This is unfortunately true.
> Radiologist only use slice images for diagnosis.
> 
> It is probably the consequence of two facts:
> 
> 1) Radiologist do not get training on images generated
>      by volume renderting.
> 
> 2) There are no stablished standards on the sort of
>     transfer functions and visualization parameters
>     that should be used for diagnostic of a particular
>     disorder in a specific image modality.
> 
> 
> It also leads to the circular dependency problem that:
> because radiologist only look at slices, imaging protocols
> tend to acquire slices with high in-plane resolution and
> large inter-slice spacing, making those images unusable
> for computer assisted image processing. It is not uncommon
> to find voxel sizes with anisotropies of 1:10. Most image
> segmentation and registration algorithms will have a hard
> time producing something useful out of such images.
> 
> Probably medical organizations such as RSNA should
> make an effort for establishing standards for visualization
> of 3D medical images, and provide training on how to take
> advantages these modern visualization techniques on the
> daily clinical practice.
> 
> Otherwise most of the techological advances of 3D imaging
> will keep being wasted before it gets to benefit the health care
> offered to patients.
> 
> Curiously,
> it is more common to find surgeons using 3D rendering
> images for image-guided surgery.
> 
> 
> 
>      Luis
>     
> 
> 
> .............
> 
> Antoine ROSSET wrote:
> 
> >>hi, vtk users,
> >>
> >>If there are some medical related guys here, it is possible for them to
> >>answer my question. My question is more radiologist specific question. I
> >>am doing volume rendering. I want to know what is the task of a radiologist
> >>in general for analyzing CT slices. How do they do this analysis based on
> >>2D CT slices?(where can I find this kind of information?) Is it possible for
> >>volume rendering to detect all the structures of interest based on the slice
> >>information?
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >For image interpretation, radiologists always look at the axial CT images,
> >and sometimes use MPR images if slice thickness is less than 3mm. No
> >radiologists would never give a diagnostic by simply looking at a 3D
> >reconstruction like volume rendering, MIP, ... Volume rendering and MIP are
> >'nice' images to show to clinicians, but they are not 'diagnostic' images.
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
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