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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · World J Nucl Med 2020; 19(03): 224-232
DOI: 10.4103/wjnm.WJNM_66_19
Original Article

Improving technetium-99m methylene diphosphonate bone scan images using histogram specification technique

Anil Pandey
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
,
Param Sharma
1   Department of Computer Science, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
,
Akshima Sharma
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
,
Ashish Negi
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
,
Girish Parida
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
,
Harish Goyal
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
,
Chandra Bal
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
,
Rakesh Kumar
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
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Abstract

In this study, we have proposed and validated that histogram of a good-quality bone scan image can enhance a poor-quality bone scan image. The histograms of two good-quality technetium-99m methyl diphosphonate bone scan images IAand IBrecommended by nuclear medicine physicians (NMPs) were used to enhance 87 poor-quality bone scan images. Processed images and their corresponding input images were compared visually by two NMPs with scoring and also quantitatively using entropy, Structural similarity index measure, edge-based contrast measure, and absolute brightness mean error. Barnard's unconditional test was applied with a null hypothesis that the histogram of both IAand IBproduces similar output image at α =0.05. The mean values of quantitative metrices of the processed images obtained using IAand IBwere compared using Kolmogorov—Smirnov test. Histogram of a good-quality bone scan image can enhance a poor-quality bone scan image. Visually, histogram of IBimproved statistically significantly higher proportion (P < 0.0001) of images (86/87) as compared to histogram of IA(51/87). Quantitatively, IBperformed better than IA,and the Chi-square distance of input and IBwas smaller than that of IA. In addition, a statistically significant (P < 0.05) difference in all the quantitative metrics among the outputs obtained using IAand IBwas observed. In our study, reference histogram of good-quality bone scan images transformed the majority of poor-quality bone scan images (98.85%) into visually good-quality images acceptable by NMPs.

Keywords

Histogram specification - image enhancement - technetium 99m methyl diphosphonate bone scan

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.




Publication History

Received: 22 August 2019

Accepted: 13 January 2020

Article published online:
19 April 2022

© 2020. Sociedade Brasileira de Neurocirurgia. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commecial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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