SEEG Contact Detector: Rozszerzenie do programu 3D Slicer do automatycznego lokalizowania kontaktów elektrod śródmózgowych
SEEG Contact Detector: A 3D Slicer Extension for Automated Localisation of Intracranial Electrode Contacts
W skrócie
[Preprint - wstępne wyniki] Naukowcy opracowali nowe narzędzie informatyczne, które automatycznie lokalizuje elektrody implantowane w mózgu pacjentów z epilepsją. Program działa w powszechnie używanym oprogramowaniu medycznym 3D Slicer i jest darmowy. Badanie na 78 pacjentach wykazało bardzo wysoką dokładność - ponad 99% elektrod zostało rozpoznanych automatycznie, a tylko 0,65% wymagało ręcznej korekty, co znacznie przyspieszając pracę lekarzy i zmniejszając błędy w interpretacji wyników zapisów mózgowych.
Oryginalny abstract (angielski)
Background Precise localisation of intracranial electrode contacts is essential for the interpretation of stereoelectroencephalography recordings and planning epilepsy surgery. In current clinical practice, this is typically a manual process, which is time-consuming and prone to variability. Existing automated solutions are often fragmented across multiple tools requiring technical expertise, limiting their adoption in routine clinical workflows. This study presents an open-source extension for 3D Slicer that provides an integrated, user-friendly standalone solution for the direct automatic detection of electrode contacts within a widely used medical imaging platform. Results The proposed method combines anchor bolt-based initialisation, probabilistic segmentation of electrode structures, and non-linear modelling to precisely track true electrode trajectories. The approach was evaluated on a dataset comprising 78 cases from 73 patients, including 1,078 electrodes with 14,480 contacts. The method achieved high localisation accuracy, with a median (interquartile range) deviation of 0.10 (0.06, 0.15) mm. Only 7/1078 (0.65%) electrodes required manual correction; these specific cases were handled using tools provided within the proposed extension. Conclusions The presented extension enables fast, accurate, and reproducible electrode contact localisation within a single integrated environment. By combining automation with intuitive user interaction, it significantly reduces processing time while maintaining clinical reliability. The tool’s free availability as an extension in 3D Slicer lowers the barrier to adoption and supports the standardisation of workflows across clinical and research centres.