title: Optical coherence tomography for the identification of musculoskeletal structures of the spine: a pilot study.
abstract: Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a complex three-dimensional deformity of the spine requiring in severe cases invasive surgery. Here, we explore the potential of optical coherence tomography (OCT) as a guiding tool for novel fusionless minimally invasive spinal surgeries on an ex vivo porcine model. We show that OCT, despite its limited penetration depth, may be used to precisely locate structures such as growth plate, bone and intervertebral disk using relative attenuation coefficients. We further demonstrate a segmentation algorithm that locates growth plates automatically on en-face OCT reconstructions.
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Beaudette
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Strupler
authors.forename: Fouzi
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Benboujja
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parent
authors.forename: Carl-Eric
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Aubin
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Boudoux