Abstract
Bronchoscopic planning can fail at the map-building stage when a CT airway segmentation breaks between the trachea and peripheral branches. We study this upstream reliability problem without claiming device or lesion reach. Ten airway-segmentation methods were evaluated on 103 scans from ATM’22, EXACT’09, and AeroPath. Peripheral connected-endpoint recall (PCER) reports the physically selected reference endpoints recovered by the trachea-connected prediction. It provides endpoint-level interpretation alongside TD, BD, Dice, and precision, not a replacement or independent clinical outcome. In the main post-hoc cohort-adjusted model, tracheal-lumen intensity variability is associated with PCER (β = −0.508 points/HU; HC3 95% CI −0.723 to −0.293; p = 3.57 × 10−6). Critically, the association is nonsignificant when EXACT’09 is omitted (β = −0.272; 95% CI −0.679 to 0.135; p = 0.190), showing cohort dependence. The exploratory pooled upper-quartile split is not a clinical operating point. An automatic method returns a measurement in all 103 scans and agrees with the annotation-derived value (ρ = 0.908; median absolute error 2.17HU). Better airway connectivity may support planning, but clinical and device feasibility remain unvalidated.
Links to Paper and Supplementary Materials
Main Paper (Open Access Version): https://papers.miccai.org/miccai-2026-sat/paper/CREATE_018.pdf
SharedIt Link: Not yet available
SpringerLink (DOI): Not yet available
Supplementary Material: https://papers.miccai.org/miccai-2026-sat/supp/CREATE_018_supp.pdf
Link to Open Review
Open Review Page: https://openreview.net/forum?id=JAImqXxnyU
BibTex
@InProceedings{YuEth_CT_MICCAISAT2026,
author = { Yu, Ethan AND Son, Yunsik},
title = { { CT Airway-Map Reliability for Bronchoscopic Planning: A Multi-Cohort Study of Connected Peripheral Endpoints } },
booktitle = {Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention -- MICCAI 2026 Workshops and Challenges},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Springer Nature Switzerland},
volume = {LNCS 17275},
month = {pending},
page = {pending}
}