Csaba Pinter

• PhD
• Research Director at EBATINCA

Purpose: Interest in adaptive radiation therapy research is constantly growing, but software tools available for researchers are mostly either expensive, closed proprietary applications, or free open-source packages with limited scope, extensibility, reliability, or user support. To address these limitations, we propose SlicerRT, a customizable, f...

A variety of advanced image analysis methods have been under development for ultrasound-guided interventions. Unfortunately, the transition from an image analysis algorithm to clinical feasibility trials as part of an intervention system requires integration of many components, such as imaging and tracking devices, data processing algorithms, and v...

Background and objective: Segmentation is a ubiquitous operation in medical image computing. Various data representations can describe segmentation results, such as labelmap volumes or surface models. Conversions between them are often required, which typically include complex data processing steps. We identified four challenges related to managing...

Virtual reality (VR) provides immersive visualization that has proved to be useful in a variety of medical applications. Currently, however, no free open-source software platform exists that would provide comprehensive support for translational clinical researchers in prototyping experimental VR scenarios in training, planning or guiding medical in...

PURPOSE We summarize Quantitative Imaging Informatics for Cancer Research (QIICR; U24 CA180918), one of the first projects funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Informatics Technology for Cancer Research program. METHODS QIICR was motivated by the 3 use cases from the NCI Quantitative Imaging Network. 3D Slicer was selected as the platform...

Background Ductus arteriosus stenting (DAS) is used to palliate infants with ductal‐dependent pulmonary blood flow (DD‐PBF), however patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) anatomy can be complex and heterogenous. Aims We developed custom, open‐source software to model and quantify PDA anatomy. Methods We retrospectively identified 33 neonates with DD‐PBF...

Purpose: Given the high prevalence of vertebral fractures post-radiotherapy in patients with metastatic spine disease, accurate and rapid muscle segmentation could support efforts to quantify muscular changes due to disease or treatment and enable biomechanical modeling for assessments of vertebral loading to improve personalized evaluation of vert...

Objectives To investigate the performance of a deep learning (DL) model for segmenting cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans taken before and after mandibular horizontal guided bone regeneration (GBR) to evaluate hard tissue changes. Materials and methods The proposed SegResNet-based DL model was trained on 70 CBCT scans. It was tested on 10...

Many approaches have been used to model chordae tendineae geometries in finite element simulations of atrioventricular heart valves. Unfortunately, current "functional" chordae tendineae geometries lack fidelity that would be helpful when informing clinical decisions. The objectives of this work are (i) to improve synthetic chordae tendineae geomet...

Purpose Many approaches have been used to model chordae tendineae geometries in finite element simulations of atrioventricular heart valves. Unfortunately, current “functional” chordae tendineae geometries lack fidelity (e.g., branching) that would be helpful when informing clinical decisions. The objectives of this work are (i) to improve syntheti...

Bevezetés: A ’cone-beam’ (kúpsugaras) számítógépes tomográfiás (CBCT) felvételek szegmentációja során a síkbeli képekből álló adatokat három dimenzióban (3D) rekonstruáljuk. A szájsebészetben és a parodontológiában a digitális adatfeldolgozás lehetővé teszi a műtéti beavatkozások 3D tervezését. A leggyakrabban alkalmazott határérték-alapú szegmentá...

Automatic segmentation of medical images is a key step for diagnostic and interventional tasks. However, achieving this requires large amounts of annotated volumes, which can be tedious and time-consuming task for expert annotators. In this paper, we introduce DeepEdit, a deep learning-based method for volumetric medical image annotation, that allo...

Objectives To analyze morphological, volumetric, and linear hard tissue changes following horizontal ridge augmentation using a three-dimensional radiographic method. Methods As part of a larger ongoing prospective study, 10 lower lateral surgical sites were selected for evaluation. Horizontal ridge deficiencies were treated with guided bone regen...

Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of membrane exposure during vertical ridge augmentation (VRA) utilizing guided bone regeneration with a dense polytetrafluoroethylene (d-PTFE) membrane and a tent-pole space maintaining approach by registering radiographic volumetric, linear and morphological changes. Methods In 8 cases...

Cardiovascular disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. 3D imaging of the heart's structure is critical to the understanding and treatment of cardiovascular disease. However, open-source tools for image analysis of cardiac images, particularly 3D echocardiographic (3DE) data, are limited. We describe the rat...

Automatic segmentation of medical images is a key step for diagnostic and interventional tasks. However, achieving this requires large amounts of annotated volumes, which can be tedious and time-consuming task for expert annotators. In this paper, we introduce DeepEdit, a deep learning-based method for volumetric medical image annotation, that allo...

Purpose Our aim was to present a virtual surgical planning process in the regenerative treatment of intrabony periodontal defects and to evaluate volumetric and 3D morphological changes by the superimposition of pre- and post-operative cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) datasets. Methods Eight intrabony periodontal defects were enrolled in the p...

Objective: The aim of the current article was to present a radiographic method to determine the surface area of newly formed periodontal attachment, as well as to analyze volumetric and morphologic changes after regenerative periodontal treatment. Method and materials: In this retrospective study, 11 singular intrabony periodontal defects were s...

Aim: The purpose of this article is to present a novel method for the CBCT subtraction analysis of 3D changes following alveolar ridge preservation (ARP) with the application of a semi-automatic segmentation workflow and spatial registration. The study hypothesis was that by utilizing our novel approach, better 3D visualization and improved volume...

Célkitűzés: Célunk egy parodontális defektus regeneratív-rekonstruktív sebészi ellátásának és a műtétek digitális tervezésének bemutatása hibrid virtuális modell alapján, továbbá a pre- és postoperatív cone-beam computer tomográf (CBCT) felvételek pontos térbeli illesztésével a változások digitális kiértékelése. Vizsgálati anyag és módszer: Félauto...

Virtual, hybrid three-dimensional (3D) model acquisition is presented in this article, utilizing the sequence of radiographic image segmentation, spatial registration, and free-form surface modeling. Firstly cone-beam computed tomography datasets were reconstructed with a semi-automatic segmentation method. Alveolar bone and teeth are separated int...

Purpose Biventricular repair of double outlet right ventricle (DORV) necessitates the creation of a complex intracardiac baffle. Creation of the optimal baffle design and placement thereof can be challenging to conceptualize, even with 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional images. We describe a newly developed methodology for creating virtual baffles to...

Voxelizing three-dimensional surfaces into binary image volumes is a frequently performed operation in medical applications. In radiation therapy (RT), dose-volume histograms (DVHs) calculated within such surfaces are used to assess the quality of an RT treatment plan in both clinical and research settings. To calculate a DVH, the 3D surfaces need...

Three dimensional dosimetry is being used in an increasingly wide variety of clinical applications as more gel and radiochromic plastic dosimeters become available. However, accessible 3D dosimetry analysis tools have not kept pace. 3D dosimetry data analysis is time consuming and laborious, creating a barrier to entry for busy clinical environment...

Purpose: The objective of this study was to develop and validate an open-source module for MRI to transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) registration to support tumor-targeted prostate brachytherapy. Methods and materials: In this study, 15 patients with prostate cancer lesions visible on multiparametric MRI were selected for the validation. T2-weighted...

Quantitative analysis of clinical image data is an active area of research that holds promise for precision medicine, early assessment of treatment response, and objective characterization of the disease. Interoperability, data sharing, and the ability to mine the resulting data are of increasing importance, given the explosive growth in the number...

In tracked ultrasound systems, temporal misalignment between image and tracker data results in incorrect image pose. We present a fully automatic temporal calibration. We image a flat plate in water with a tracked probe undergoing periodic uniaxial freehand translation. Using robust line detection scheme, we compute temporal misalignment as differe...

Radiochromic film dosimetry has been widely adopted in the clinic as it is a convenient option for dose measurement and verification. Film dosimetry analysis is typically performed using expensive commercial software, or custom made scripts in Matlab. However, common clinical film analysis software is not transparent regarding what corrections/opti...

The National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC) was launched in 2004 with the goal of investigating and developing an open source software infrastructure for the extraction of information and knowledge from medical images using computational methods. Several leading research and engineering groups participated in this effort that was fun...

PURPOSE: In radiotherapy treatment planning systems, structures of interest such as targets and organs at risk are stored as 2D contours on evenly spaced planes. In order to be used in various algorithms, contours must be converted into binary labelmap volumes using voxelization. The voxelization process results in lost information, which has littl...

Moving the computational analysis for 3D gel dosimetry into the 3D Slicer (www.slicer.org) environment has made gel dosimetry more clinically accessible. To ensure accuracy, we cross-validate the 3D gamma comparison module in 3D Slicer with an independently developed algorithm using simulated and measured dose distributions. Two reference dose dist...

Segmented structures such as targets or organs at risk are typically stored as 2D contours contained on evenly spaced cross sectional images (slices). Contour interpolation algorithms are implemented in radiation oncology treatment planning software to turn 2D contours into a 3D surface, however the results differ between algorithms, causing discre...

Radiation therapy is a form of cancer treatment in which carefully designed plans are used to direct treatment over multiple occasions (fractions). Creating radiation plans is quite laborious, so it is not feasible to manually create a plan for each fraction to maintain treatment quality. We propose to use a database of plans to find the most simil...

An extension tailored to dose data processing and analysis has been developed in the open source imaging application 3D Slicer to aid in routine clinical use of gel dosimetry. This extension allows for registration, calibration, and comparison of 3D gel dosimeter data (imaged using an optical CT scanner) to treatment planning data. In this work, we...

Radiation therapy (RT) is a common treatment option for a wide variety of cancer types. Despite significant improvements in this technique over the past years, software tools for research in RT are limited to either expensive, closed, proprietary applications or heterogeneous sets of open-source software packages with limited scope, reliability, an...

Purpose: Recent years have seen growing interest in adaptive radiation therapy (RT), but the existing software tools are not ideal for research use, as they are either expensive and closed proprietary applications or free open-source packages with limited scope, extensibility, reliability, or user support. To address these limitations, we have deve...

One challenge in gel dosimetry is the manipulation and analysis of complex data sets from different systems. In this paper, we describe a simple and fast gel dosimetry analysis tool for radiation therapy dose deliveries. Using the open source medical imaging software 3D Slicer, an extension was designed and implemented for the purpose of importing...

Purpose SlicerRT is a flexible platform that allows the user to incorporate the necessary images registration and processing tools to improve clinical workflow. This work validates the accuracy and the versatility of the deformable image registration algorithm of the free open‐source software SlicerRT using a deformable physical pelvic phantom vers...

PURPOSE: Validation of image registration algorithms is frequently accomplished by the visual inspection of the resulting linear or deformable transformation due to the lack of ground truth information. Visualization of transformations produced by image registration algorithms during image-guided interventions allows for a clinician to evaluate th...

Purpose: Ultrasound is prevalent in image-guided therapy as a safe, inexpensive, and widely available imaging modality. However, extensive training in interpreting ultrasound images is essential for successful procedures. An open-source ultrasound image simulator was developed to facilitate the training of ultrasound-guided spinal intervention pro...

Purpose Interest in adaptive radiation therapy research is constantly growing, but software tools available for researchers are mostly either expensive, closed proprietary applications, or free open‐source packages with limited scope, extensibility, reliability, or user support. To address these limitations, we propose SlicerRT, a customizable, fre...

Image guided needle placement, including ultrasound guided techniques, have become commonplace in modern medical diagnosis and therapy. To ensure that the next generations of physicians are competent using this technology, efficient and effective educational programs will need to be developed. This paper presents the Perk Tutor: a configurable, ope...

This document describes the design of the PLUS (Public software Library for Ultrasound) open-source toolkit. The toolkit provides a basic infrastructure for implementing ultrasound-guided intervention systems. Functionalities include collection of synchronized ultrasound and position data from a wide variety of hardware devices, spatial and tempora...

Prostate cancer brachytherapy relies on an accurate spatial registration between the implant needles and the TRUS image, called "calibration". The authors propose a new device and a fast, automatic method to calibrate the brachytherapy system in the operating room, with instant error feedback. A device was CAD-designed and precision-engineered, whi...