Detection and removal of texts burned in medical images using deep learning
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Szelagowski_21661800_2023.pdf
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- This master thesis addresses a critical yet under-explored aspect of medical imaging: the removal of burned-in text that can bias AI algorithms and threaten patient confidentiality. While anonymization of DICOM tags is a well-established practice, the removal of patient identifiers burned into the pixels of medical images often poses a challenge due to the lack of accessible, open-source tools. To address this, this study presents a new approach involving the application of a scene text detection algorithm called TextBoxes. Using a synthetic dataset derived from The Cancer Imaging Archive, we trained different models and obtained impressive results. This achievement led to the creation of MedTextCleaner (MTC), an open-source and user-friendly plugin for Orthanc. MTC, incorporating our deep learning model, automates the de-identification process by suggesting potential text regions within an image for removal and allowing for manual user validation and adjustment. The integration of MedTextCleaner into Orthanc represents a valuable development in DICOM image anonymization, which can be especially useful for teaching and research applications.
Citations
Szelagowski, N. (2023). Detection and removal of texts burned in medical images using deep learning. https://dial-mem.test.bib.ucl.ac.be/handle/2078.2/32872