Towards automatic bone age estimation from MRI: localization of 3D anatomical landmarks

Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2014;17(Pt 2):421-8. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-10470-6_53.

Abstract

Bone age estimation (BAE) is an important procedure in forensic practice which recently has seen a shift in attention from X-ray to MRI based imaging. To automate BAE from MRI, localization of the joints between hand bones is a crucial first step, which is challenging due to anatomical variations, different poses and repeating structures within the hand. We propose a landmark localization algorithm using multiple random regression forests, first analyzing the shape of the hand from information of the whole image, thus implicitly modeling the global landmark configuration, followed by a refinement based on more local information to increase prediction accuracy. We are able to clearly outperform related approaches on our dataset of 60 T1-weighted MR images, achieving a mean landmark localization error of 1.4 ± 1.5mm, while having only 0.25% outliers with an error greater than 10mm.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Age Determination by Skeleton / methods*
  • Aging / physiology*
  • Anatomic Landmarks / anatomy & histology*
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Hand Bones / diagnostic imaging*
  • Hand Bones / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Male
  • Pattern Recognition, Automated / methods
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Young Adult