Using digital chest radiography to develop bone assessment software for Asians

• Main Authors: Chih-Chieh Chang, 張智傑
• Other Authors: Jyh-Cheng Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/83465369610929178610

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 生物醫學影像暨放射科學系暨研究所 === 96 === Introduction and purpose: With the arrival of the aging society, many healthy problems become an important issue globally. The osteoporosis is one of the problems. The osteoporosis leads to bone fractures at lumbar spine and hip joint. Early detection of osteoporosis can prevent unwanted pain and suffering of the patient and reduce the economic burden and the strain on medical resources caused by the fractures. At present, instruments to do osteoporosis detection are needed to be purchased additionally and are expensive. The digital chest radiography is one of the necessary items in the annual regular health screening in Taiwan. The purpose of this research was to develop user-friendly software that can evaluate bone status from digital chest radiography. Materials and methods: Active shape model and intelligent scissors were used to obtain the geometric information of the left clavicle in the digital chest radiography. Two bone status indicators, volume per projection area (VPA) and bone volume ratio (BVR) were calculated from the geometric information of the chest images. Two clinical tests were designed to validate indicators: 1. Clinical data was divided into two groups based on the menopause age (about 50 years old). Averages of VPA and BVR in two groups were calculated. Two sample t-test was used to see whether averages of VPA and BVR between two groups reach statistic difference. 2. Calculate Pearson’s correlation coefficient between VPA/BVR and bone mineral density (BMD) which is the current gold standard to diagnose osteoporosis of the same person. Results: Results of two clinical tests were: 1. Both VPA and BVR had significant difference between two age groups. 2. Both VPA and BVR had correlation with BMD. Conclusions: 1. VPA and BVR both can used to be bone status indicators. 2. Our software can provide a simple, economic, and fast method to screen osteoporosis from digital chest radiography.