Automated brain tumor segmentation using multimodal brain scans: a survey based on models submitted to the BraTS 2012-2018 challenges

Reliable brain tumor segmentation is essential for accurate diagnosis and treatment planning. Since manual segmentation of brain tumors is a highly time-consuming, expensive and subjective task, practical automated methods for this purpose are greatly appreciated. But since brain tumors are highly heterogeneous in terms of location, shape, and size, developing automatic segmentation methods has remained a challenging task over decades. This paper aims to review the evolution of automated models for brain tumor segmentation using multimodal MR images. In order to be able to make a just comparison between different methods, the proposed models are studied for the most famous benchmark for brain tumor segmentation, namely the BraTS challenge [1]. The BraTS 2012-2018 challenges and the state-of-the-art automated models employed each year are analysed. The changing trend of these automated methods since 2012 are studied and the main parameters that affect the performance of different models are analysed.