Spinal Curvature Measurement by Tracked Ultrasound Snapshots

Ungi, Tamás; King, Franklin; Kempston, Michael P.; Keri, Zsuzsanna; Lassó, András; Mousavi, Parvin; Rudan, John F.; Borschneck, Daniel; Fichtinger, Gabor

doi:10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2013.09.021

Cited by 79 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Recently, it has also emerged as a useful, low cost tool for applications that involve imaging bone structures such as guidance for epidural anesthesia (Ashab et al, 2013), bone fracture assessment (Haci-haliloglu et al, 2009) and scoliosis assessment and monitoring (Young et al, 2015;Ungi et al, 2014). However, the interpretation of bone ultrasound images is very challenging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Potential applications include deformity assessment (Ungi et al, 2014;Cheung et al, 2015;Young et al, 2015), spinal brace adjustment Li et al, 2012) and dense 3D spine surface reconstruction (Nguyen et al, 2015). The current gold standard measure for assessing scoliosis (as well as its progression or the effectiveness of a treatment) is the Cobb angle, measured on postero-anterior X-ray images.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the work cited above has focused on reproducing this measurement, or rather proxies of this measurement (e.g., using the Spinous Process Angle (Li et al, 2012), the Center of Laminae method (Nguyen et al, 2015) or the Transverse Process Angle (Ungi et al, 2014)), since the orientation of the vertebral endplates, which define the Cobb angle, cannot be visualized in ultrasound images. The proposed methods of measurement mirror what is typically done in clinical practice with the X-ray images, i.e., they are entirely based on the manual identification of anatomical features, which is time consuming and lacks repeatability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Segmentation of the spinous process and its acoustic shadow in vertebral ultrasound images

Berton

Cheriet

Marie-Claude

et al. 2016

Computers in Biology and Medicine

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Spinal ultrasound imaging is emerging as a low-cost, radiation-free alternative to conventional X-ray imaging for the clinical follow-up of patients with scoliosis. Currently, deformity measurement relies almost entirely on manual identification of key vertebral landmarks. However, the interpretation of vertebral ultrasound images is challenging, primarily because acoustic waves are entirely reflected by bone. To alleviate this problem, we propose an algorithm to segment these images into three regions: the spinous process, its acoustic shadow and other tissues. This method consists, first, in the extraction of several image features and the selection of the most relevant ones for the discrimination of the three regions. Then, using this set of features and a LDA classifier, each pixel of the image is classified as belonging to one of the three * Corresponding author Email addresses: florian.berton@polymtl.ca (Florian Berton), farida.cheriet@polymtl.ca (Farida Cheriet), marie-claude_miron@ssss.gouv.qc.ca regions. Finally, the image is segmented by regularizing the pixel-wise classification results to account for some geometrical properties of vertebrae. The feature set was first validated by analyzing the classification results across a learning database. The database contained 107 vertebral ultrasound images acquired with convex and linear probes. Classification rates of 84%, 92% and 91% were achieved for the spinous process, the acoustic shadow and other tissues, respectively. Dice similarity coefficients of 0.72 and 0.88 were obtained respectively for the spinous process and acoustic shadow, confirming that the proposed method accurately segments the spinous process and its acoustic shadow in vertebral ultrasound images. Furthermore, the centroid of the automatically segmented spinous process was located at an average distance of 0.38 mm from that of the manually labeled spinous process, which is on the order of image resolution. This suggests that the proposed method is a promising tool for the measurement of the Spinous Process Angle and, more generally, for assisting ultrasound-based assessment of scoliosis progression.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Segmentation of the spinous process and its acoustic shadow in vertebral ultrasound images

Berton

Cheriet

Marie-Claude

et al. 2016

Computers in Biology and Medicine

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“…A new method for scoliosis measurement has been developed previously, and tested on phantom models [16]. Tracked ultrasound (TUS) has been successfully used in medical imaging and image-guided interventions.…”

Section: Scoliosis Monitoring Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As part of this translational effort we build upon of the proof of concept phantom system proposed by [16] and present a portable TUS system based on a new ultrasound machine and optical tracking. We streamline the workflow of the procedure so it can be easily replicated by other researchers and operated without deep technical background.…”

Section: Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Portable Optically Tracked Ultrasound System for Scoliosis Measurement

Carbajal

Gómez

Fichtinger

et al. 2015

Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics

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Monitoring spinal curvature in adolescent kyphoscoliosis requires regular radiographic examinations; however, the applied ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer. Ultrasound imaging is favorable over X-ray because it does not emit ionizing radiation. It has been shown in the past that tracked ultrasound can be used to localize vertebral transverse processes as landmarks along the spine to measure curvature angles. Tests have been performed with spine phantoms, but scanning protocol, tracking system, data acquisition and processing time has not been considered in human subjects yet. In this paper, a portable optically tracked ultrasound system for scoliosis measurement is presented. It provides a simple way to acquire data in the clinical environment with the aim of comparing results to current X-ray-based measurement. The workflow of the procedure was tested on volunteers. The customized open-source software is shared with the community as part of our effort to make a clinically practical system.

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A real‐time freehand 3D ultrasound imaging method for scoliosis assessment

Jiang

Chen

2022

J Applied Clin Med Phys

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Real‐time 3D ultrasound has gained popularity in many fields because it can provide interactive feedback to help acquire high‐quality images or to conduct timely diagnosis. However, no comprehensive study has been reported on such an imaging method for scoliosis evaluation due to the complexity of this application. Meanwhile, the use of radiation‐free assessment of scoliosis is becoming increasingly popular. This study developed a real‐time 3D ultrasound imaging method for scoliosis assessment based on an incremental imaging method. In vivo experiments involving 36 patients with scoliosis were performed to test the performance of the proposed method. This new imaging method achieved a mean incremental frame rate of 82.7 ± 11.0 frames/s. The high repeatability of the intra‐operator test (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.92) and inter‐operator test (ICC = 0.91) demonstrated that the new method was very reliable. The result of spinous process angles obtained by the new method was linearly correlated (y = 0.97x, R2 = 0.88) with that obtained by conventional 3D reconstruction. These results suggested that the newly developed imaging method can provide real‐time ultrasound imaging for scoliosis evaluation while preserving the comparative image quality of the conventional 3D reconstruction method.

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Spinal Curvature Measurement by Tracked Ultrasound Snapshots

Cited by 79 publications

References 19 publications

Segmentation of the spinous process and its acoustic shadow in vertebral ultrasound images

Segmentation of the spinous process and its acoustic shadow in vertebral ultrasound images

Portable Optically Tracked Ultrasound System for Scoliosis Measurement

A real‐time freehand 3D ultrasound imaging method for scoliosis assessment

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