Efficient liver surgery planning in 3D based on functional segment classification and volumetric information.

Anatomic hepatectomies are resections in which compromised segments or sectors of the liver are extracted according to the topological structure of its vascular elements. Such structure varies considerably among patients, which makes the current anatomy-based planning methods often inaccurate. In this work we propose a strategy to efficiently and semi-automatically segment and classify patient-specific liver models in 3D. The method is based on standard CT datasets and allows accurate estimation of functional remaining liver volume. Experiments showing effectiveness of the method are presented, and quantitative and qualitative results are discussed.