Cobb Angle Measurement of Spine from X-Ray Images Using Convolutional Neural Network.

Cobb Angle Measurement of Spine from X-Ray Images Using Convolutional Neural Network. Comput Math Methods Med. 2019;2019:6357171 Authors: Horng MH, Kuok CP, Fu MJ, Lin CJ, Sun YN Abstract Scoliosis is a common spinal condition where the spine curves to the side and thus deforms the spine. Curvature estimation provides a powerful index to evaluate the deformation severity of scoliosis. In current clinical diagnosis, the standard curvature estimation method for assessing the curvature quantitatively is done by measuring the Cobb angle, which is the angle between two lines, drawn perpendicular to the upper endplate of the uppermost vertebra involved and the lower endplate of the lowest vertebra involved. However, manual measurement of spine curvature requires considerable time and effort, along with associated problems such as interobserver and intraobserver variations. In this article, we propose an automatic system for measuring spine curvature using the anterior-posterior (AP) view spinal X-ray images. Due to the characteristic of AP view images, we first reduced the image size and then used horizontal and vertical intensity projection histograms to define the region of interest of the spine which is then cropped for sequential processing. Next, the boundaries of the spine, the central spinal curve line, and the spine foreground are detected by using intensity and gradient information of the region of interest, and a progressive thre...
Source: Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine - Category: Statistics Tags: Comput Math Methods Med Source Type: research