Head and Neck Auto-segmentation Challenge: Segmentation of the Parotid Glands

This paper presents the results of the Head and Neck Autosegmentation Challenge, a part of the workshop, “Medical Image Analysis in the Clinic: A Grand Challenge”, held in conjunction with the 13 International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions (MICCAI), Beijing, China, in September 2010. The aim of the challenge was to evaluate the performance of fully automated algorithms in segmenting the parotid glands in head and neck CT image data used in radiotherapy planning. We describe the motivation behind the clinical application selected for the challenge, the image data used, and the metrics applied for the quantitative assessment of the segmentation accuracy with respect to the ground truth segmentations provided by a clinical expert. The quantitative evaluation results of the auto-segmentations submitted by the workshop participants are included.