A method for
lesion segmentation in 3-dimensional (3D) digital images, includes selecting a 2D
region of interest (ROI) from a 3D image, the ROI containing a suspected
lesion, extending borders of the ROI to 3D forming a
volume of interest (VOI), where voxels on the borders of the VOI are initialized as background voxels and voxels in an interior of the VOI are initialized as foreground voxels, propagating a foreground and background
voxel competition where for each
voxel in the VOI, having each neighbor
voxel in a neighborhood of the voxel
attack the voxel, and, if the
attack is successful, updating a
label and strength of the voxel with that of the successful attacking voxel, and evolving a surface between the foreground and background voxels in 3D until an
energy functional associated with the surface converges in value, where the surface segments the suspected
lesion from the image.