Three dimensional reconstruction of the spine computed tomography (CT) images from 2D CT slices

Abstract

In medical field, imaging techniques are used for diagnosis of different disease and carrying out treatments. Number of people affected by spinal disorders is increasing nowadays. The Spine details obtained from a Computed Tomography (CT) imaging plays a significant role  in screening of spine conditions, disorders and also useful for planning of surgeries. Spine has a complex structure as it consists of vertebrae, intervertebral disks, spinal cord. Surgeons face challenges while working with the computer aided system for training of surgeries. This can be made ease by creating a Three dimensional image models as it provide detailed view of the internal parts of the spine.  In this paper, a method for developing three dimensional image from two dimensional slices for spine CT images is presented. The Global thresholding and a mathematical morphological technique is applied in the presented method. It is concluded that segmented and mathematical morphological technique applied reconstruction produce better results than the direct reconstruction of images from the segmented image. The visualization and the quantitative results state the method is effective and better. The results are evaluated using the metrics like Accuracy, Sensitivity, Specificity and Dice.