Validation of automated white matter hyperintensity segmentation

Introduction. white matter hyperintensities (wmhs) are a common finding on mri scans of older people and are associated with vascular disease. we compared 3 methods for automatically segmenting wmhs from mri scans. method. an operator manually segmented wmhs on mri images from a 3t scanner. the scans were also segmented in a fully automated fashion by three different programmes. the voxel overlap between manual and automated segmentation was compared. results. between observer overlap ratio was 63. using our previously described in-house software,we had overlap of 62.2. we investigated the use of a modified version of spm segmentation; however,this was not successful,with only 14 overlap. discussion. using our previously reported software,we demonstrated good segmentation of wmhs in a fully automated fashion. © 2011 sean d. smart et al.