Patent ID: 11915420
Assignee: UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method for obtaining an image biomarker that quantifies the quality of the trabecular structure of bones, the method comprising:
retrieving high-resolution trabecular images generated by a technique selected from among Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and a combination of CT and MRI, wherein the high-resolution trabecular images are retrieved from a medical image database with a large quantity of content from trabecular regions;
pre-processing the high-resolution trabecular images, wherein pre-processing the high-resolution trabecular images comprises:
obtaining a region of interest (ROI);
calculating a bone fraction map;
removing a partial volume effect; and
binarizing;

post-processing the high-resolution trabecular images, wherein post-processing the high-resolution trabecular images comprises:
skeletonisation; and
extracting morphological and structural characteristics; and

obtaining a unique image biomarker (QTS) based on the following equation:

QTS=0.7137*Comp1+0.2863*Comp2,, where:

Comp1=BV/TV1*BV/TV+TbTh1*TbTh+TbSp1*TbSp+TbN1*TbN+D2D1*D2D+D3D1*D3D;

Comp2=BV/TV2*BV/TV+TbTh2*TbTh+TbSp2*TbSp+TbN2*TbN+D2D2*D2D+D3D2*D3D,

where:

BV/TV1=0.255; TbTh1=−0.023; TbSp1=−0.277; TbN1=0.280; D2D1=0.246; D3D1=0.089;

BV/TV2=0.331; TbTh2=0.670; TbSp2=0.066; TbN2=0.123; D2D2=−0.239; D3D2=−0.292,

and, where:

BV/TV=(BV/TV-−mean(BV/TV)/std.dev(BV/TV);

TbTh=(TbTh−mean(TbTh)/std.dev(TbTh);

TbSp=(TbSp−mean(TbSp)/std.dev(TbSp);

TbN=(TbN−mean(TbN)/std.dev(TbN);

D2D=(D2D−mean(D2D)/std.dev(D2D);

D3D=(D3D−mean(D3D)/std.dev(D3D),, wherein
BV/TV is associated with a trabecular volume; TbTh is associated with a mean trabecular thickness; TbSp is associated with a mean trabecular separation; TbN is associated with a trabecular number; D2D is associated with a 2D fractal dimension; D3D is associated with a 3D fractal dimension; and VARIABLE_NAMEn, where n=1,2, is the respective VARIABLE_NAME value to calculate “Comp1” and “Comp2” respectively.