Lung infection region quantification, recognition, and virtual reality rendering of CT scan of COVID-19

Benbelkacem, S.; Oulefki, A.; Agaian, S.; Trongtirakul, T.; Aouam, D.; Zenati-Henda, N.; Amara, K.

In recent years, virtual reality has experienced steady growth in the medical field, such as surgery, rehabilitation, disease diagnostic, and learning. The 3D representation of radiological images plays a significant role in disease diagnostic and treatment planning compared to standard 2D medical images. Since March 2019, almost all laboratories and medical centers have improved their patients' management methods with confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. Providing appropriate treatment in the well moment may contribute to save lives. Our study aims to develop an advanced COVID-19 CT scan image segmentation and 3D visualization using an unsupervised thresholding procedure and virtual reality technology to better plan and monitor affected patients. Our proposed system provides three-dimensional COVID-19 lesion visualization, which clearly shows segmented infected region (in 3D) rather than traditional two-dimensional images. Radiologists and doctors on actual patients tested the developed system. The experimenters noticed that VR rendering of CT scan of COVID-19 improves the disease diagnostic and drug prescription. © 2021 SPIE.