Contour and Angle-Function Based Scoliosis Monitoring: Relaxing the Requirement on Image Quality in the Measurement of Spinal Curvature.
01 Jan 2017-The International Journal of Spine Surgery (International Journal of Spine Surgery)-Vol. 11, Iss: 3, pp 22-22
TL;DR: Because the spine contour is discernible even in low quality images where vertebral endplates may be obscured or poorly contrasted from surrounding tissue, the approach offers improved reliability, applicability across imaging modalities, and the possibility of a reduced radiation dose.
About: This article is published in The International Journal of Spine Surgery.The article was published on 2017-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 9 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Cobb angle & Image quality.
Citations
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TL;DR: The computer-aided method achieved a high level of sensitivity (89.59%) and a relatively low level of specificity (70.37%) for diagnosing scoliosis on chest X-rays and has potential for automatic Cobb angle measurement andScoliosis diagnosis on chestX-rays.
Abstract: To automatically measure the Cobb angle and diagnose scoliosis on chest X-rays, a computer-aided method was proposed and the reliability and accuracy were evaluated. Two Mask R-CNN models as the core of a computer-aided method were used to separately detect and segment the spine and all vertebral bodies on chest X-rays, and the Cobb angle of the spinal curve was measured from the output of the Mask R-CNN models. To evaluate the reliability and accuracy of the computer-aided method, the Cobb angles on 248 chest X-rays from lung cancer screening were measured automatically using a computer-aided method, and two experienced radiologists used a manual method to separately measure Cobb angles on the aforementioned chest X-rays. For manual measurement of the Cobb angle on chest X-rays, the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) of intra- and inter-observer reliability analysis was 0.941 and 0.887, respectively, and the mean absolute differences were 10° as a reference standard for scoliosis, the computer-aided method achieved a high level of sensitivity (89.59%) and a relatively low level of specificity (70.37%) for diagnosing scoliosis on chest X-rays. The computer-aided method has potential for automatic Cobb angle measurement and scoliosis diagnosis on chest X-rays. These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.
50 citations
TL;DR: The use of mobile applications to assist with posture assessment have been demonstrated to be reliable, and this can contribute to clinical practice of health professionals, especially the assessment and reassessment phases of treatments, despite some variations when compared to traditional methods.
Abstract: Smartphones are increasingly incorporated with features such as sensors and high resolution cameras that empower their capabilities, enabling their use for varied activities including human posture assessments. Previous reviews have discussed methods used in postural assessment but none of them focused exclusively on mobile applications. This paper systematically reviews mobile applications proposed for analyzing human posture based on alignment of the body in the sagittal and coronal plane. The main digital libraries were searched, 26 articles published between 2010 and 2020 were selected, and 13 mobile applications were identified, classified and discussed. Results showed that the use of mobile applications to assist with posture assessment have been demonstrated to be reliable, and this can contribute to clinical practice of health professionals, especially the assessment and reassessment phases of treatments, despite some variations when compared to traditional methods. Moreover, in the case of image-based applications, we highlight the advantage that measurements can be taken with the assessor at a certain distance with respect to the patient’s position, which is an important function for assessments performed in pandemic times such as the outbreak of COVID-19.
25 citations
TL;DR: A spline constructed from vertebra centroids to resemble spinal curve characteristics more closely is proposed, suggesting an advantage of spline-based automated measuring systems, so further investigations are warranted to abandon manual COBB measurements.
Abstract: Although being standard for scoliosis curve size estimation, COBB angle measurement is well known to be inaccurate, due to a high interobserver variance in end vertebra selection and end plate contour delineation. We propose a stepwise improvement by using a spline constructed from vertebra centroids to resemble spinal curve characteristics more closely. To enhance precision even further, a neural net was trained to detect the centroids automatically. Vertebra centroids in AP spinal X-ray images of varying quality from 551 scoliosis patients were manually labeled by 4 investigators. With these inputs, splines were generated and the computed curve sizes were compared to the manually measured COBB angles and to the curve estimation obtained from the neural net. Splines achieved a higher interobserver correlation of 0.92–0.95 compared to manual COBB measurements (0.83–0.92) and showed 1.5–2 times less variance, depending on the anatomic region. This translates into an average of 1° of interobserver measurement deviation for spline-based curve estimation compared to 3°–8° for COBB measurements. The neural net was even more precise and achieved mean deviations below 0.5°. In conclusion, our data suggest an advantage of spline-based automated measuring systems, so further investigations are warranted to abandon manual COBB measurements.
14 citations
TL;DR: The novel computer based algorithm was an efficient and reliable method to assess scoliotic curvature in the coronal plane with the possibility of expediting clinic visits, ensuring reliability of calculation and decreasing patient exposure to radiation.
10 citations
Cites methods from "Contour and Angle-Function Based Sc..."
...Expanding on the earlier description, the computerassisted image processing and curvature measurement methodology employed in this study consisted of an image enhancement step followed by a curvature measurement step deriving from the approach reported by Bonanni.12 The objective of enhancement was local adjustment of brightness and contrast to reveal the maximum anatomical detail within the dynamic range afforded by the display system....
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...Expanding on the earlier description, the computerassisted image processing and curvature measurement methodology employed in this study consisted of an image enhancement step followed by a curvature measurement step deriving from the approach reported by Bonanni.(12) The objective of enhancement was local adjustment of brightness and contrast to reveal the maximum anatomical detail within the dynamic range afforded by the display system....
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TL;DR: The patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis should be advised to take the brace off for a minimum of two hours before the scheduled x-ray, to allow full relaxation of the trunk in order to obtain reliable radiological images of the deformation.
3 citations
References
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TL;DR: The aim of this paper is to provide a complete overview of the existing methods for quantitative evaluation of spinal curvature from medical images, and to summarize the relevant publications, which may not only assist in the introduction of other researchers to the field, but also be a valuable resource for studying theexisting methods or developing new methods and evaluation strategies.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide a complete overview of the existing methods for quantitative evaluation of spinal curvature from medical images, and to summarize the relevant publications, which may not only assist in the introduction of other researchers to the field, but also be a valuable resource for studying the existing methods or developing new methods and evaluation strategies. Key evaluation issues and future considerations, supported by the results of the overview, are also discussed.
215 citations
"Contour and Angle-Function Based Sc..." refers background in this paper
...Along with Cobb angle, Vrtovec et al.11overview a number of alternative characterizations of coronal spinal curvature, including Ferguson method,2 Greenspan index,12 Diab et al. method13 and Centroid method.14 These methods all rely on extraction of image features from individual vertebrae, predominately the vertebra centers, followed by reduction to a single discrete index....
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...Along with Cobb angle, Vrtovec et al.(11)overview a number of alternative characterizations of coronal spinal curvature, including Ferguson method,(2) Greenspan index,(12) Diab et al....
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10 Sep 2000
TL;DR: The problem of detecting straight lines in gray-scale images as an inverse problem is posed based on use of the inverse Radon operator, which relates the parameters determining the location and orientation of the lines in the image to the noisy input image.
Abstract: The problem of determining the location and orientation of straight lines in images is often encountered in the fields of computer vision and image processing. Traditionally the Hough transform has been widely used to solve this problem for binary images, due to it's simplicity and effectiveness. In this paper we pose the problem of detecting straight lines in gray-scale images as an inverse problem. We treat the input image as noisy observations, which are related to the underlying transform domain image through the inverse Hough transform operator. We then regularize this inverse problem using constraints that accentuate peaks in the Hough parameter space. We present four different forms of such constraints and demonstrate their effectiveness. Finally we show how our scheme can be alternatively viewed as one of finding an optimal representation of the image in terms of elements chosen from a redundant dictionary of lines, and thus is a form of adaptive signal representation.
155 citations
"Contour and Angle-Function Based Sc..." refers methods in this paper
...The red line defines the orientation of the disc, and is computed using a Radon transform.(20,21) The red dots define the disc edges, and are computed by detecting where the image intensity along the line (and, for better noise immunity, averaged in the direction normal to the line) falls below a threshold....
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TL;DR: There was no evidence of an abnormality of sagittal curvature of a magnitude to implicate it in the etiology or in the treatment, and mechanical measures to correct this spinal deformity or to prevent progression should apply different rotations to the apex.
142 citations
TL;DR: A mean filter is proposed to locate the true peak in the radon image and a profile analysis technique is used to further refine the line parameters, showing that the proposed methodology is effective in finding the centerline and estimating the line width of thick lines.
Abstract: Centerline detection and line width estimation are important for many computer vision applications, e.g., road network extraction from high resolution remotely sensed imagery. Radon transform-based linear feature detection has many advantages over other approaches: for example, its robustness in noisy images. However, it usually fails to detect the centerline of a thick line due to the peak selection problem. In this paper, several key issues that affect the centerline detection using the radon transform are investigated. A mean filter is proposed to locate the true peak in the radon image and a profile analysis technique is used to further refine the line parameters. The thetas-boundary problem of the radon transform is also discussed and the erroneous line parameters are corrected. Intensive experiments have shown that the proposed methodology is effective in finding the centerline and estimating the line width of thick lines
127 citations
"Contour and Angle-Function Based Sc..." refers methods in this paper
...The red line defines the orientation of the disc, and is computed using a Radon transform.(20,21) The red dots define the disc edges, and are computed by detecting where the image intensity along the line (and, for better noise immunity, averaged in the direction normal to the line) falls below a threshold....
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