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Computer-aided assessment of scoliosis on posteroanterior radiographs

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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by General Program for Applied Basic Research of Yunnan Province (2008CD079), and Science and Technology Research Project of Yunnan University (2009F33Q).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650091, China

    Junhua Zhang & Xinling Shi

  2. Department of Rehabilitation Technology, Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, Edmonton, T5G 0B7, Canada

    Edmond Lou, Douglas L. Hill & James V. Raso

  3. Department of Electronic Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Yuanyuan Wang

  4. Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, T6G 2E1, Canada

    Lawrence H. Le

Authors
  1. Junhua Zhang
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  2. Edmond Lou
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  3. Douglas L. Hill
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  4. James V. Raso
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  5. Yuanyuan Wang
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  6. Lawrence H. Le
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  7. Xinling Shi
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Correspondence to Junhua Zhang.

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Zhang, J., Lou, E., Hill, D.L. et al. Computer-aided assessment of scoliosis on posteroanterior radiographs. Med Biol Eng Comput 48, 185–195 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-009-0556-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-009-0556-7

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