آرشیو تیر ماه 1401

بزرگمهر پارسه

Overview of HECKTOR

Head and neck cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide (fifth leading incidence). Radiotherapy and cetuximab are considered the standard treatment. However, locoregional defects are a significant challenge in improving and controlling the condition and occur in forty percent of the patients within the first two years of the treatment.

Recently, several radiomic studies have been proposed to better identify patients in a non-invasive manner by using available images such as those obtained for diagnosis and planning treatment. These studies are based on positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) imaging.

HECKTOR was created in 2020 to provide an opportunity to compare automated algorithms dedicated to tumor segmentation in FDG PET/CT multidimensional images.

The HECKTOR Challenge is an excellent opportunity for professionals working on three-dimensional segmentation algorithms to present GTV tumor segmentation approaches in PET/CT scans, focusing on oral and pharyngeal cancers.

The 1st edition of the HECKTOR challenge was performed using a data set of 254 patients from 5 centers and attracted about 20 people to participate. In 2021, Hector’s challenge was repeated with a larger data set (325 patients from 6 centers) with the addition of a second task. The 2nd edition of the HECKTOR challenge was successfully held with twice the number of participants, 40 for the first task and 30 participants for the second task.

Following the success of the first two HECKTOR Challenges in 2020 and 2021, this challenge will again be held at the 25th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Intervention (MICCAI) 2022.

This challenge version also includes fully automatic lymph node diagnosis and segmentation in addition to the primary tumor. The data set is expected to have more than a thousand patients collected from 9 different centers.