Extracting Cross-Sectional Clinical Images Based on Their Principal Axes of Inertia

Abstract

Cross-sectional imaging is considered the gold standard in diagnosing a range of diseases. However, despite its widespread use in clinical practice and research, no widely accepted method is available to reliably match cross-sectional planes in several consecutive scans. This deficiency can impede comparison between cross-sectional images and ultimately lead to misdiagnosis. Here, we propose and demonstrate a method for finding the same imaging plane in images obtained during separate scanning sessions. Our method is based on the reconstruction of a “virtual organ” from which arbitrary cross-sectional images can be extracted, independent of the axis orientation in the original scan or cut; the key is to establish unique body coordinates of the organ from its principal axes of inertia. To verify our method a series of tests were performed, and the same cross-sectional plane was successfully extracted. This new approach offers clinicians access, after just a single scanning session, to the morphology and structure of a lesion through cross-sectional images reconstructed along arbitrary axes. It also aids comparable detection of morphological and structural changes in the same imaging plane from scans of the same patient taken at different times—thus potentially reducing the misdiagnosis rate when cross-sectional images are interpreted.

Reconstructing the First Metatarsophalangeal Joint of Homo naledi

“…In our previous investigations, a novel method is proposed to realign the sets of metatarsal bones by using their center of mass (COM) and principal axis of inertia (PAI) (Pavei et al, 2017; Arvin et al, 2018). It was successfully employed to reconstruct the human's metatarsal bones as well as erythrocytes from the capillary and human foot (Fan et al, 2017). In the present paper, we improved the method in order to reconstruct the damaged bone of the H. naledi , calculate the curvature diameter (CD) of the FMH's medial and lateral groove for sesamoids, and determine the parallelism between FMH's medial and lateral grooves.…”

Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Erythrocytes Using the Novel Method For Corrective Realignment of the Transmission Electron Microscopy Cross-Section Images

“…The ETI stacks were set and the surface point cloud computed results in the 3D solid model of the construct (Fan et al, 2017). Thereafter, a software solution specifically developed at Laboratory for foot research, Fujian Normal University (patent number 20170550615.5) was employed for corrective realignment of the adjacent CSI (Fan and Sun, 2017).…”

Scale space radon transform-based inertia axis and object central symmetry estimation

“…To finish, as shown in Fig. 2, the relationship between the angle θ that maximizes Šf and the orientation angle φ * of the object under investigation is given by: φ This means that the angle φ computed with the geometric moments in (7) and φ * the one computed after maximizing Šf , are the same. Indeed, the maximum of Šf is a line of slop φ * = φ passing through (x c , y c ) as it is the case of the inertia main axis.…”

“…Indeed, it has been involved in many works focusing on symmetry evaluation like the works presented in [1][2][3][4] or for pedestrian detection and for real time estimation of body posture purposes in [5] and in [6], respectively. In addition, the authors in [7] and in [8], have involved the main axis of inertia computation in medical applications for cross-sectional clinical images analysis purpose and for vessel centerline extraction in retinal image one. In industrial applications, computing axis of inertia has been used, for example, for image processing-based automatic monitoring of industrial process in [9] and for non destructive testing of wood in [10].…”