An Automated Method Using MATLAB to Identify the Adductor Sesamoid for Determining the Onset of Puberty and Assessing the Skeletal Age in Children

摘要

The aim of this paper is to determine the presence or absence of ossification of adductor sesamoid bone, which indicates if a child has attained puberty or not along with other physiological parameters of indicators of growth, using a computerized, automatic method of assessment. The Greulich and Pyle method is used in medical and dental sciences as a gold standard for assessment of skeletal age. This study describes the implementation of a computerized and automatic method for the identification of adductor sesamoid, using the numerical computing environment MATLAB. The input is the hand-wrist radiographic image, and the output is a Boolean true or false value indicating the presence of the adductor sesamoid bone in the input radiographic image. The onset of the appearance of adductor sesamoid indicates the onset of puberty which is important to diagnose for growth modification treatment in medicine and orthodontics.