Identification and tracking of vertebrae in ultrasound using deep networks with unsupervised feature learning

Jorden Hetherington; Mehran Pesteie; Victoria A. Lessoway; Purang Abolmaesumi; Robert N. Rohling

doi:10.1117/12.2252641

3 March 2017 Identification and tracking of vertebrae in ultrasound using deep networks with unsupervised feature learning

Jorden Hetherington, Mehran Pesteie, Victoria A. Lessoway, Purang Abolmaesumi, Robert N. Rohling

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10135, Medical Imaging 2017: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling; 101350K (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2252641
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2017, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Percutaneous needle insertion procedures on the spine often require proper identification of the vertebral level in order to effectively deliver anesthetics and analgesic agents to achieve adequate block. For example, in obstetric epidurals, the target is at the L3-L4 intervertebral space. The current clinical method involves “blind” identification of the vertebral level through manual palpation of the spine, which has only 30% accuracy. This implies the need for better anatomical identification prior to needle insertion. A system is proposed to identify the vertebrae, assigning them to their respective levels, and track them in a standard sequence of ultrasound images, when imaged in the paramedian plane. Machine learning techniques are developed to identify discriminative features of the laminae. In particular, a deep network is trained to automatically learn the anatomical features of the lamina peaks, and classify image patches, for pixel-level classification. The chosen network utilizes multiple connected auto-encoders to learn the anatomy. Pre-processing with ultrasound bone enhancement techniques is done to aid the pixel-level classification performance. Once the lamina are identified, vertebrae are assigned levels and tracked in sequential frames. Experimental results were evaluated against an expert sonographer. Based on data acquired from 15 subjects, vertebrae identification with sensitivity of 95% and precision of 95% was achieved within each frame. Between pairs of subsequently analyzed frames, matches of predicted vertebral level labels were correct in 94% of cases, when compared to matches of manually selected labels

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Jorden Hetherington, Mehran Pesteie, Victoria A. Lessoway, Purang Abolmaesumi, and Robert N. Rohling "Identification and tracking of vertebrae in ultrasound using deep networks with unsupervised feature learning", Proc. SPIE 10135, Medical Imaging 2017: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling, 101350K (3 March 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2252641

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