An attention base U-net for parotid tumor autosegmentation

A parotid neoplasm is an uncommon condition that only accounts for less than 3% of all head and neck cancers, and they make up less than 0.3% of all new cancers diagnosed annually. Due to their nonspecific imaging features and heterogeneous nature, accurate preoperative diagnosis remains a challenge. Automatic parotid tumor segmentation may help physicians evaluate these tumors. Two hundred eighty-five patients diagnosed with benign or malignant parotid tumors were enrolled in this study. Parotid and tumor tissues were segmented by 3 radiologists on T1-weighted (T1w), T2-weighted (T2w) and T1-weighted contrast-enhanced (T1wC) MR images. These images were randomly divided into two datasets, including a training dataset (90%) and an validation dataset (10%). A 10-fold cross-validation was performed to assess the performance. An attention base U-net for parotid tumor autosegmentation was created on the MRI T1w, T2 and T1wC images. The results were evaluated in a separate dataset, and the mean Dice similarity coefficient (DICE) for both parotids was 0.88. The mean DICE for left and right tumors was 0.85 and 0.86, respectively. These results indicate that the performance of this model corresponds with the radiologist’s manual segmentation. In conclusion, an attention base U-net for parotid tumor autosegmentation may assist physicians to evaluate parotid gland tumors.