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Recent Advances in Computational Methods and Clinical Applications for Spine Imaging pp 37–46Cite as

Portable Optically Tracked Ultrasound System for Scoliosis Measurement

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics ((LNCVB,volume 20))

Abstract

Monitoring spinal curvature in adolescent kyphoscoliosis requires regular radiographic examinations; however, the applied ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer. Ultrasound imaging is favorable over X-ray because it does not emit ionizing radiation. It has been shown in the past that tracked ultrasound can be used to localize vertebral transverse processes as landmarks along the spine to measure curvature angles. Tests have been performed with spine phantoms, but scanning protocol, tracking system, data acquisition and processing time has not been considered in human subjects yet. In this paper, a portable optically tracked ultrasound system for scoliosis measurement is presented. It provides a simple way to acquire data in the clinical environment with the aim of comparing results to current X-ray-based measurement. The workflow of the procedure was tested on volunteers. The customized open-source software is shared with the community as part of our effort to make a clinically practical system.

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Notes

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    www.slicer.org.

  2. 2.

    www.plustoolkit.org.

  3. 3.

    www.slicerigt.org.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the Canada-Latin America Research Exchange Grant (LACREG) program. Comision Sectorial de Investigacion Cientıfica (CSIC, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay) supported the internship of G. Carbajal at Perklab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ingeniería Eléctrica Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Guillermo Carbajal & Álvaro Gómez

  2. Laboratory for Percutaneous Surgery, School of Computing, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Gabor Fichtinger & Tamas Ungi

Authors
  1. Guillermo Carbajal
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  2. Álvaro Gómez
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  3. Gabor Fichtinger
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  4. Tamas Ungi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabor Fichtinger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    Jianhua Yao

  2. Department of Computing, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom

    Ben Glocker

  3. Innovative Technologies, Philips Research, Hamburg, Germany

    Tobias Klinder

  4. GE Healthcare and University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

    Shuo Li

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Carbajal, G., Gómez, Á., Fichtinger, G., Ungi, T. (2015). Portable Optically Tracked Ultrasound System for Scoliosis Measurement. In: Yao, J., Glocker, B., Klinder, T., Li, S. (eds) Recent Advances in Computational Methods and Clinical Applications for Spine Imaging. Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14148-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14148-0_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14147-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14148-0

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