Method and system for detection of bone structure

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9775577-B2
Application number	US-201514947560-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 20, 2015
Priority date	Apr 17, 2015
Publication date	Oct 3, 2017
Grant date	Oct 3, 2017

Abstract

A method for detecting bone structure includes allocating at least one bone portion from a bone image composed by pixels each including luminance value relating to bone structural parameter; aligning a major axis of principal axes of moment of inertia of the bone portion to a principal axis of Cartesian coordinate system; a cortical bone area of the bone portion intersecting at least one principal plane perpendicular to the principal axis, and each principal plane forming an outer and inner contour line of the cortical bone area; processing an analytic algorithm for the bone structural parameter; calculating distributed state of the bone structural parameter in each principal plane to obtain a distributed state of the bone structural parameter of the bone portion; and obtaining a distributed state of the bone structural parameter of the bone portion by assembling distributed state of the bone structural parameter of each bone portion.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for detection of bone structure, executing operation process and image reconstruction of an image of a bone captured by CT scanner to present distributed state of bone density of the bone for diagnosing osteoporosis, the bone including a plurality of bone portions, the method comprising:
allocating one bone portion of the plurality of bone portions from the image of the bone to be analyzed, wherein the image of the one bone portion is composed by pixels, and each pixel includes a luminance value positively relating to a bone structural parameter;
finding a principal axis of the one bone portion representing a longitudinal axis of the one bone portion;
intersecting a bone mass area of the one bone portion with a plurality of planes each of which is perpendicular to the principal axis of the one bone portion, such that an outer contour line and an inner contour line of the bone mass area are formed on each of the plurality of planes;
processing an analytic algorithm for the bone structural parameter, in an inner area of the outer contour line on each of the plurality of planes, to obtain a respective distributed state of the bone structural parameter along the respective outer contour line;
repeating the foregoing steps to obtain a plurality of distributed states of the bone structural parameter of the plurality of bone portions;
assembling said plurality of distributed states of the bone structural parameter of the plurality of bone portions, to obtain a distributed state of the bone structural parameter of the bone.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the bone structural parameter is bone density.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the analytic algorithm for bone density is a normal vector algorithm calculating a normal vector of the pixel of the outer contour line on each of the plurality of planes, cumulating, from the pixel to the inner area of the outer contour line along the normal vector, the luminance value of each pixel of the area between the outer contour line and the inner contour line and calculating distance between the outer contour line and the inner contour line along the normal vector, to obtain a distributed state of bone density of each pixel of the outer contour line after foresaid calculation of each pixel.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the analytic algorithm for bone density is a depth algorithm calculating a center position of the area between the outer contour line and the inner contour line on each of the plurality of planes, forming connecting lines separately from the center position to each pixel of the outer contour line, cumulating the luminance value of each pixel over each connecting line and calculating distance between the outer contour line and the inner contour line.

5. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the analytic algorithm for the bone density is a ring algorithm calculating a center position of the area between the outer contour line and the inner contour line on each of the plurality of planes, forming radial lines with fixed separation angle each, outward to reach the outer contour line, cumulating luminance value of each pixel over each radial line and calculating distance between the outer contour line and the inner contour line.

6. The method according to claim 2 , comprising obtaining the plurality of distributed states of the bone density along the respective outer contour lines with a 3D Geographic Positioning System Map, according to the calculation of the analytic algorithm for bone density.

7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein, in the 3D Geographic Positioning System Map, both a length and a width represent a position of each pixel corresponding to the bone portion, and a height represents the bone structural parameter of each pixel.

8. The method according to claim 2 , comprising obtaining the plurality of distributed states of the bone density along the respective outer contour lines with a 3D Visualization, according to the calculation of the analytic algorithm for bone density.

9. The method according to claim 2 , comprising obtaining the plurality of distributed states of the bone density along the respective outer contour lines with a 2D Map, according to the calculation of the analytic algorithm for bone density.

10. The method according to claim 9 , wherein, in the 2D Map, both a length and a width represent a position of each pixel corresponding to the bone portion, and a color distribution represents the bone structural parameter of each pixel.

Assignees

• Nat Applied Res Laboratories

Inventors

• CHANG Wei-Jeng
• Sun Chia-Yang
• Chang Charlie H
• Huang Huang-Wen
• Li Po-Ying
• HSIEH Ching-I
• Ku Cheng-Wei
• Tasi Kuen-Long

Classifications

• G16H50/30

  for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment · CPC title

• A61B6/5217

  extracting a diagnostic or physiological parameter from medical diagnostic data · CPC title

• G06T7/60

  Analysis of geometric attributes · CPC title

• G06T7/0012

  Biomedical image inspection · CPC title

• G06T2207/30008

  Bone · CPC title