title: Corresponding articular cartilage thickness measurements in the knee joint by modelling the underlying bone (commercial in confidence).
abstract: We present a method for corresponding and combining cartilage thickness readings from a population of patients using the underlying bone structure as a reference. Knee joint femoral bone and cartilage surfaces are constructed from a set of parallel slice segmentations of MR scans. Correspondence points across a population of bone surfaces are defined and refined by minimising an objective function based on the Minimum Description Length of the resulting statistical shape model. The optimised bone model defines a set of corresponding locations from which 3D measurements of the cartilage thickness can be taken and combined for a population of patients. Results are presented for a small group of patients demonstrating the feasibility and potential of the approach as a means of detecting sub-millimetre cartilage thickness changes due to disease progression.
authors.affiliation: Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
authors.forename: Tomos G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: ZaiXiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Waterton
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001168:Arthritis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000473:pathology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005269:Femur / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000473:pathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated; D013382:Subtraction Technique