title: Adaptive ultrasound imaging of the lumbar spine for guidance of epidural anesthesia.
abstract: Ultrasound imaging can help in choosing the needle trajectory for epidural anesthesia but anatomical features are not always clear. Spatial compounding can emphasize structures; however, features in the beam-steered images are not aligned due to varying speeds of sound. A non-rigid registration method, called warping, shifts pixels of the beam-steered images to best match the reference image. Linear prediction is used to find the warping vectors and decrease computational cost. An adaptive median-based combination technique for compounding is also investigated. The algorithms are tested on a spine phantom and human subjects. The results show a significant improvement in quality when using warping with adaptive median-based compounding.
authors: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
authors: Denis
authors: D
authors: Tran
authors: King-Wei
authors: KW
authors: Hor
authors: Victoria A
authors: VA
authors: Lessoway
authors: Allaudin A
authors: AA
authors: Kamani
authors: Robert N
authors: RN
authors: Rohling
mesh_terms: D015360:Analgesia, Epidural / Q000379:methods*; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D013129:Spinal Puncture / Q000379:methods*; D018084:Ultrasonography, Interventional / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*