Cross-channel feature transfer 3D U-Net for automatic segmentation of the perilymph and endolymph fluid spaces in hydrops MRI

The identification of endolymphatic hydrops (EH) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is crucial for understanding inner ear disorders such as Meniere's disease and sudden low-frequency hearing loss. The EH ratio is calculated as the ratio of the endolymphatic fluid space to the perilymphatic fluid space. We propose a novel cross-channel feature transfer (CCFT) 3D U-Net for fully automated segmentation of the perilymphatic and endolymphatic fluid spaces in hydrops MRI. The model exhibits state-of-the-art performance in segmenting the endolymphatic fluid space by transferring magnetic resonance cisternography (MRC) features to HYDROPS-Mi2 (HYbriD of Reversed image Of Positive endolymph signal and native image of positive perilymph Signal multiplied with the heavily T2-weighted MR cisternography). Experimental results using the CCFT module showed that the segmentation performance of the perilymphatic space was 0.9459 for the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and 0.8975 for the intersection over union (IOU), and that of the endolymphatic space was 0.8053 for the DSC and 0.6778 for the IOU.