Patent Document ID: 8725231
Application ID: 12709309
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of fracture risk assessment comprising: generating a volumetric model corresponding to a three-dimensional image of a bone structure for each bone structure in a training set of bone structures wherein the volumetric model comprises a number of volumetric vertices; defining a vector of variables, wherein each variable in the vector of variables comprises a three-dimensional position of one of the number of volumetric vertices and at least one parameter associated with at least one volumetric vertex; generating a set of individual vectors, the generating comprising, for each individual vector, determining values for each variable in the vector of variables wherein each individual vector corresponds to one bone structure in the training set of bone structures and the values for each variable in the vector of variables are based, at least in part, on the volumetric model corresponding to the one bone structure; generating a covariance matrix comprising calculated covariance between elements of the set of individual vectors; performing variable reduction on the set of individual vectors providing a plurality of reduced variables, the variable reduction based on eigenvalues calculated from the covariance matrix; determining a discriminator based at least in part on a result of the variable reduction wherein the discriminator comprises one or more of the plurality of reduced variables; and applying the discriminator to a selected bone structure to assess the fracture risk of the selected bone structure, wherein the selected bone structure is not in the training set of bone structures; wherein the generated volumetric model is a specific volumetric model corresponding to a selected bone structure based on a two-dimensional image of the selected bone structure, the generating the specific volumetric model further comprising: selecting an initial value for at least one specific reduced variable of the plurality of reduced variables; generating a current volumetric model based, at least in part, on the at least one specific reduced variable; determining a current value of an objective function wherein the objective function comprises at least one of a plurality of geometric measures and at least one bone mass density based on the two-dimensional image of the selected bone structure and a corresponding at least one of the plurality of geometric measures and at least one bone mass density determined based on the current volumetric model; and updating a value of the at least one specific reduced variable and repeating generating the current volumetric model based, at least in part, on the updated value of the at least one specific reduced variable and determining the current value of the objective function until the objective function converges wherein the current volumetric model when the objective function converges corresponds to the specific volumetric model.