Rules

Registration

PAVES is now closed! The information below is for reference of current participants only. 

 

Training Datasets

These comprise of 32 cases of DICOM sets.  The target post-processing in each of the 32 cases is a 0.5 mm isovolumetric acquisition with both arterial and venous opacification.  To aid refinement of the processing results each case also contains a 1 mm thick coronal plane arterial phase acquisition and also a coronal maximum intensity projection (MIP) time resolved acquisition covering early arterial through to early venous filling.

 

Segmentation may be performed using commercial or open-source software; in either case details of how the processing procedure was developed must be provided.

The training datasets are provided only for the creation and refinement of post-processing algorithms.

 

Challenge Datasets

These contain similar high-spatial resolution (0.5 mm isotropic voxel) gadolinium contrast-enhanced lower limb MRA DICOM series, half with and half without accompanying overview MIP dynamic series. 

It is the Challenge Datasets which we ask you to return your separated arteries and veins.



Judging and Results

The deadline for submissions has been extended to the 30th April 2019. 

The output of your image processing should be 2 separate DICOM image sets - one arterial and one venous.  The resolution and dimensions of these DICOMs should match that of the original DICOM data.  Final submission should comprise of the following components:

  1. Ten folders containing the arterial and venous segmentation DICOM files for the respective cases in the Challenge Datasets
  2. A pdf document including the team members and roles, affiliated institutions, and the methodology used for creation of the segmentation algorithm.  This should include details of hardware and software used and the time taken to run the programme for each DICOM dataset.

 

Solutions will be judged by a panel consisting of –

  • Medical Image Analysis expert nominated by MICCAI board
  • Diagnostic vascular radiologist experienced in lower limb MRA
  • Vascular Interventional radiologist with expertise in lower limb interventions
  • Vascular surgeon with expertise in lower limb bypass grafting
  • MRI Physicist with expertise in cardiovascular imaging

 

Value will be placed on the following –

  1. Discrimination of arteries: veins
  2. Image quality arterial tree
  3. Completeness of patent arterial segments
  4. Image quality veins
  5. Widely applicable solutions
  6. Speed of segmentation

After the deadline the submissions will be reviewed and the top scoring teams will be invited to present their work at the 31at annual meeting of the Society for Magnetic Resonance Angiography in Nantes, France (28th - 30th August 2019). The registration fee will be waived for invited teams and they will also be eligible for a travel bursary to cover costs of attending of up to $500.

Additional Information

In order to assist you in completing the challenge we have provided some information on the clinical background, the MR sequences, the anatomy of the arteries and veins, and some tips on how to process your images to create a useable ground truth.

This is in .pptx format and can be downloaded here.