ResST-SEUNet++: Deep Model for Accurate Segmentation of Left Ventricle and Myocardium in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Images.

Abstract

The highly precise and trustworthy segmentation of the left ventricle (LV) and myocardium is critical for diagnosing and treating cardiovascular disorders, which includes persistent microvascular obstruction (MVO) as well as myocardial infarction (MI) diseases. This process improves diagnostic accuracy and optimizes the planning and implementation of therapeutic interventions, ultimately improving the quality of care and patient prognosis. Limitations of earlier investigations include neglecting the complex image pre-processing required to accurately delineate areas of the LV and myocardium (Myo) in MRI and the absence of a substantial, high-quality dataset. Thus, this paper presents a comprehensive end-to-end framework, which includes contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and bilateral filtering methods for image pre-processing and the development and implementation of a proposed deep model for left ventricular and myocardium segmentation. This study utilizes the EMIDEC database for the training and assessment of the model, allowing for a detailed comparative analysis with six state-of-the-art (SOTA) segmentation models. This approach provides a high accuracy and reliability for the segmentation that is crucial for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disorders. The achievements of the proposed model are demonstrated by high average values of segmentation rates, such as an Intersection over Union (IoU) of 93.73%, Recall of 96.54%, Dice coefficient of 96.70%, Precision of 96.86%, and F1-score of 96.70%. To verify the generalization capability, we assessed our suggested model on five supplementary databases, which substantiates its exceptional efficiency and adaptability in a diverse environment. The presented findings demonstrate that the proposed deep model surpasses current methods, offering more a precise and resilient segmentation of cardiac structures.