As part of their work, neurosurgeons spend valuable time analyzing brain tumors and defining the areas in which they must apply radiation therapy, a task that can take up to 5 hours.
In order to simplify their analysis work, a doctoral student of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) developed a piece of software that improves in a few seconds the resolution of 3D images of brain tumors and blood vessels from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
The software, which analyzes any type of brain tumor, gives clearer and more differentiated tissue samples by eliminating the noise produced by magnetic resonance. Image noise affects visibility and impedes computerized image-analysis.
Jean Marie Vianney Kinani, the software’s creator, explained that eliminating the image noise can represent a vital difference for a patient, since lost information due to poor image quality can cause the doctor removing millimetric portions of healthy tissue or leaving cancerous tissue during surgery.
“By eliminating the noise you have a clearer vision of the images, and the piece of software can process them to have an accurate detection of brain areas with a problem,” Vianney Kinani said.
He added that the software was designed to transform the images to an array, regardless of the type of equipment or format, for the purpose of manipulating them without problem and eliminate the so-called Rician noise.
Although there are some similar systems in the world, the one developed by Vianney Kiani has important advantages, among which, not only defines the different areas of the organ and the damaged tissue, but also allows to have a quantitative analysis of the cerebral data. It also indicates the cuts that must be done in surgery and the necrotic areas within the affected area; and it can be adapted to robotic radiosurgery (cyberknife) and precision modulated radiotherapy (iMRT) systems.
The piece of software, though which Vianney Kiani obtained a PhD in Communications and Electronics, works in any computer that has installed Matlab platform. For its development, Vianney Kiani counted with the advice of IPN researchers Francisco Javier Gallegos Funes and Alberto Jorge Rosales Silva.
As a result of the research, Jean Marie Vianney Kinani has published several scientific articles in international journals and the results have been disclosed in national and international congresses.
For the contributions this tool represent for neurosurgery, its creator will initiate the procedures leading to transfer the technology to be applied at the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery ‘Manuel Velasco Suárez’.
Source: La Jornada
