3D Anatomical Representations and Analysis: an Application to the Spine

TL;DR

This paper introduces a framework for creating patient-specific 3D models of the spine from CT images, enabling detailed analysis of tissue condition and morphology for medical assessment and surgical planning.

Contribution

The work presents a novel method for extracting and analyzing 3D vertebral models with tissue segmentation, enhancing spine pathology characterization and diagnostic capabilities.

Findings

Effective extraction of 3D vertebral models from CT images

Segmentation of vertebral regions for tissue analysis

Framework supports surgical planning and diagnosis

Abstract

This work proposes a framework for the patient-specific characterization of the spine, which integrates information on the tissues with geometric information on the spine morphology. Key elements are the extraction of 3D patient-specific models of each vertebra and the intervertebral space from 3D CT images, the segmentation of each vertebra in its three functional regions, and the analysis of the tissue condition in the functional regions based on geometrical parameters. The localization of anomalies obtained in the results and the proposed visualization support the applicability of our tool for quantitative and visual evaluation of possible damages, for surgery planning, and early diagnosis or follow-up studies. Finally, we discuss the main properties of the proposed framework in terms of characterisation of the morphology and pathology of the spine on benchmarks of the spine district.