Automatic segmentation of large-scale CT image datasets for detailed body composition analysis

BACKGROUND: Body composition (BC) is an important factor in determining the risk of type 2-diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Computed tomography (CT) is a useful imaging technique for studying BC, however manual segmentation of CT images is time-consuming and subjective. The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate fully automated segmentation techniques applicable to a 3-slice CT imaging protocol, consisting of single slices at the level of the liver, abdomen, and thigh, allowing detailed analysis of numerous tissues and organs. METHODS: The study used more than 4000 CT subjects acquired from the large-scale SCAPIS and IGT cohort to train and evaluate four convolutional neural network based architectures: ResUNET, UNET++, Ghost-UNET, and the proposed Ghost-UNET++. The segmentation techniques were developed and evaluated for automated segmentation of the liver, spleen, skeletal muscle, bone marrow, cortical bone, and various adipose tissue depots, including visceral (VAT), intraperitoneal (IPAT), retroperitoneal (RPAT), subcutaneous (SAT), deep (DSAT), and superficial SAT (SSAT), as well as intermuscular adipose tissue (IMAT). The models were trained and validated for each target using tenfold cross-validation and test sets. RESULTS: The Dice scores on cross validation in SCAPIS were: ResUNET 0.964 (0.909–0.996), UNET++ 0.981 (0.927–0.996), Ghost-UNET 0.961 (0.904–0.991), and Ghost-UNET++ 0.968 (0.910–0.994). All four models showed relatively strong results, however UNET++ had the best performance overall. Ghost-UNET++ performed competitively compared to UNET++ and showed a more computationally efficient approach. CONCLUSION: Fully automated segmentation techniques can be successfully applied to a 3-slice CT imaging protocol to analyze multiple tissues and organs related to BC. The overall best performance was achieved by UNET++, against which Ghost-UNET++ showed competitive results based on a more computationally efficient approach. The use of fully automated segmentation methods can reduce analysis time and provide objective results in large-scale studies of BC. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12859-023-05462-2.