A New 3D Segmentation Methodology for Lumbar Vertebral Bodies for the Measurement of BMD and Geometry
This work addresses the need for precise fracture prediction in osteoporosis patients, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing segmentation methods for medical imaging.
The paper tackles the problem of accurately measuring bone mineral density (BMD) and geometry of lumbar vertebral bodies from CT scans, achieving intra- and inter-operator precision below 1.5% for segmentation and BMD, and accuracy errors below 1.5% for BMD and 4% for volume in phantom data.
In this paper a new technique is presented that extracts the geometry of lumbar vertebral bodies from spiral CT scans. Our new multi-step segmentation approach yields highly accurate and precise measurement of the bone mineral density (BMD) in different volumes of interest which are defined relative to a local anatomical coordinate systems. The approach also enables the analysis of the geometry of the relevant vertebrae. Intra- and inter operator precision for segmentation, BMD measurement and position of the coordinate system are below 1.5% in patient data, accuracy errors are below 1.5% for BMD and below 4% for volume in phantom data. The long-term goal of the approach is to improve fracture prediction in osteoporosis.