Automated diagnostic process compares mal-positioned human spinal discs with acceptable values

摘要

A fully automatic clinical examination system determines the nature of damage to discs located between adjacent vertebrae, as detected by radiology images. The system generates a backbone (14) curvature chart which is filtered in a direction relative to the backbone axis (18). The system determines a series of points along the backbone axis. The sum of curvature misalignment points is determined and compared with a range of acceptable minimum and maximum values (20,22), thereby determining if a disc is correctly positioned (26).