# Atrial Scar Quantification via Multi-scale CNN in the Graph-cuts Framework

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.07877 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.07877/

## Key facts

- Cited by 19 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 21 Feb 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Unbox the Black-box for the Medical Explainable AI via Multi-modal and Multi-centre Data Fusion: A Mini-Review, Two Showcases and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.01998/) (2021)
- [Medical Image Analysis on Left Atrial LGE MRI for Atrial Fibrillation Studies: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09862/) (2021)
- [MyoPS-Net: Myocardial Pathology Segmentation with Flexible Combination of Multi-Sequence CMR Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.03062/) (2022)
- [Multi-Modality Cardiac Image Computing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12881/) (2022)
- [AtrialGeneral: Domain Generalization for Left Atrial Segmentation of Multi-Center LGE MRIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08727/) (2021)
- [AWSnet: An Auto-weighted Supervision Attention Network for Myocardial Scar and Edema Segmentation in Multi-sequence Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05344/) (2022)
- [Cross-Modality Multi-Atlas Segmentation via Deep Registration and Label Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.02000/) (2022)
- [Recent Advances in Fibrosis and Scar Segmentation from Cardiac MRI: A State-of-the-Art Review and Future Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15707/) (2021)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) Powered Fast Magnetic Resonance Imaging -- Mini Review, Comparison and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01800/) (2021)
- [UGformer for Robust Left Atrium and Scar Segmentation Across Scanners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05151/) (2022)
- [K-Prism: A Knowledge-Guided and Prompt Integrated Universal Medical Image Segmentation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25594/) (2025)
- [Multi-Target Landmark Detection with Incomplete Images via Reinforcement Learning and Shape Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.05392/) (2023)
- [Automatically Segment the Left Atrium and Scars from LGE-MRIs Using a Boundary-focused nnU-Net](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14071/) (2023)
- [Integrating Deep Learning in Cardiology: A Comprehensive Review of Atrial Fibrillation, Left Atrial Scar Segmentation, and the Frontiers of State-of-the-Art Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09561/) (2024)
- [LA-CaRe-CNN: Cascading Refinement CNN for Left Atrial Scar Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04553/) (2025)
- [Three-Dimensional Embedded Attentive RNN (3D-EAR) Segmentor for Left Ventricle Delineation from Myocardial Velocity Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13214/) (2021)
- [Multi-Modality Cardiac Image Analysis with Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04736/) (2021)
- [Progressive Learning with Anatomical Priors for Reliable Left Atrial Scar Segmentation from Late Gadolinium Enhancement MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26186/) (2026)
- [CardioLens: Revealing the Clinical Reality Gap of MLLMs via Multi-Sequence Cardiac MRI Evaluations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00123/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Late gadolinium enhancement magnetic resonance imaging (LGE MRI) appears to be a promising alternative for scar assessment in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Automating the quantification and analysis of atrial scars can be challenging due to the low image quality. In this work, we propose a fully automated method based on the graph-cuts framework, where the potentials of the graph are learned on a surface mesh of the left atrium (LA) using a multi-scale convolutional neural network (MS-CNN). For validation, we have employed fifty-eight images with manual delineations. MS-CNN, which can efficiently incorporate both the local and global texture information of the images, has been shown to evidently improve the segmentation accuracy of the proposed graph-cuts based method. The segmentation could be further improved when the contribution between the t-link and n-link weights of the graph is balanced. The proposed method achieves a mean accuracy of 0.856 +- 0.033 and mean Dice score of 0.702 +- 0.071 for LA scar quantification. Compared with the conventional methods, which are based on the manual delineation of LA for initialization, our method is fully automatic and has demonstrated significantly better Dice score and accuracy (p < 0.01). The method is promising and can be useful in diagnosis and prognosis of AF.