Extraction of whole and torn meniscus in M.R.I. images and detection of meniscal tears

摘要

Osteoarthritis has become a very rapidly spreading disorder of bones and joints among old people and young athletes indulging in sports such as soccer, hockey, etc. Injuries of the knee like tears in the meniscus can be seen very commonly in young athletes as well as the aged people. The Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems help to a large extent and can play a major role in their detection. In this paper, we deal with the automatic region-of-interest location, extraction of the meniscus from the M.R.I. images of the knee joint and then assigning scores to the tears, if any, which can be used for quantification of the severity of tear. The proposed system was evaluated on a database of 34 individuals; and sensitivity and specificity were found to be 88% and 96% respectively. The results are encouraging and this system may prove to be a stepping stone in development of more sophisticated algorithms for detailed classification of the tears.