Learning-based classification of informative laryngoscopic frames.

Learning-based classification of informative laryngoscopic frames.

Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2018 May;158:21-30

Authors: Moccia S, Vanone GO, Momi E, Laborai A, Guastini L, Peretti G, Mattos LS

Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Early-stage diagnosis of laryngeal cancer is of primary importance to reduce patient morbidity. Narrow-band imaging (NBI) endoscopy is commonly used for screening purposes, reducing the risks linked to a biopsy but at the cost of some drawbacks, such as large amount of data to review to make the diagnosis. The purpose of this paper is to present a strategy to perform automatic selection of informative endoscopic video frames, which can reduce the amount of data to process and potentially increase diagnosis performance.
METHODS: A new method to classify NBI endoscopic frames based on intensity, keypoint and image spatial content features is proposed. Support vector machines with the radial basis function and the one-versus-one scheme are used to classify frames as informative, blurred, with saliva or specular reflections, or underexposed.
RESULTS: When tested on a balanced set of 720 images from 18 different laryngoscopic videos, a classification recall of 91% was achieved for informative frames, significantly overcoming three state of the art methods (Wilcoxon rank-signed test, significance level = 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS: Due to the high performance in identifying informative frames, the approach is a valuable tool to perform informative frame selection, which can be potentially applied in different fields, such us computer-assisted diagnosis and endoscopic view expansion.

PMID: 29544787 [PubMed - in process]

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