Patent Document ID: 8121370
Application ID: 13163279
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of computing the angle of Cobb in a spine image comprising for a curved segment of said spine image, determining the most inclined vertebrae at the inflection points in a sequence of orientations of successive vertebrae in said segment determining the angle of Cobb as the angle between a first and a second straight line tangent to the end plates of said determined vertebrae, wherein said most inclined vertebrae are determined by evaluating the rotation angles of vertebrae in said segment, and wherein said rotation angle of each vertebrae in said segment relative to a reference position in a reference image is determined by a method comprising the steps of: (1) obtaining a digital signal representation of an image of said segment; (2) obtaining a digital reference image B pertaining to a vertebrae in said segment and having the same dimension thereof; (3) applying the digital signal representation of the segment image to a display device coupled to a computer and displaying the segment image; (4) selecting a vertebrae in the displayed segment image; (5) computing parameters of a geometric transform comprising at least a rotational component and geometric transformation mapping said vertebrae from said reference image B onto the corresponding selected vertebrae in the segment image in a common coordinate system; (6) aligning said images by applying said geometric transform with the computed parameters to said reference image, wherein the rotational component of said transform determines the extent to which the position of said selected vertebrae in the segment is rotated, and obtaining the rotation angle for said selected vertebrae; (7) repeating steps (1)-(6) for each successive vertebrae in said segment.