Computer assisted characterization of cervical intervertebral disc degeneration in MRI

A texture-based pattern recognition system is proposed for the automatic characterization of cervical intervertebral disc degeneration from saggital magnetic resonance images of the spine. A case sample of 50 manually segmented ROIs, corresponding to 25 normal and 25 degenerated discs, was analyzed and textural features were generated from each disc-ROI. Student's t-test verified the existence of statistically significant differences between textural feature values generated from normal and degenerated discs. This finding is indicative of disc image texture differentiation due to the degeneration of the disc. The generated features were employed in the design of a pattern recognition system based on the Least Squares Minimum Distance classifier. The system achieved a classification accuracy of 94{%} and it may be of value to physicians for the assessment of cervical intervertebral disc degeneration in MRI.

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