Computer-aided assessment of scoliosis on posteroanterior radiographs

In order to reduce the observer variability in radiographic scoliosis assessment, a computer-aided system was developed. The system semi-automatically measured the Cobb angle and vertebral rotation on posteroanterior radiographs based on Hough transform and snake model, respectively. Both algorithms...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical & biological engineering & computing 2010-02, Vol.48 (2), p.185-195
Main Authors: Zhang, Junhua, Lou, Edmond, Hill, Douglas L, Raso, James V, Wang, Yuanyuan, Le, Lawrence H, Shi, Xinling
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Algorithms
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Biomedicine
CAD
Child
Computer aided design
Computer Applications
Female
Human Physiology
Humans
Imaging
Lumbar Vertebrae - diagnostic imaging
Male
Measurement techniques
Observer Variation
Original Article
Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods
Radiography
Radiology
Reproducibility of Results
Scoliosis
Scoliosis - diagnostic imaging
Studies
Thoracic Vertebrae - diagnostic imaging
Torsion Abnormality - diagnostic imaging
Vertebrae
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Summary:In order to reduce the observer variability in radiographic scoliosis assessment, a computer-aided system was developed. The system semi-automatically measured the Cobb angle and vertebral rotation on posteroanterior radiographs based on Hough transform and snake model, respectively. Both algorithms were integrated with the shape priors to improve the performance. The system was tested twice by each of three observers. The intraobserver and interobserver reliability analyses resulted in the intraclass correlation coefficients higher than 0.9 and 0.8 for Cobb measurement on 70 radiographs and rotation measurement on 156 vertebrae, respectively. Both the Cobb and rotation measurements resulted in the average intraobserver and interobserver errors less than 2° and 3°, respectively. There were no significant differences in the measurement variability between groups of curve location, curve magnitude, observer experience, and vertebra location. Compared with the documented results, measurement variability is reduced by using the developed system. This system can help orthopedic surgeons assess scoliosis more reliably.
ISSN:0140-0118
1741-0444
DOI:10.1007/s11517-009-0556-7