Skeleton Bone Age Analysis from Epiphysis and Metaphysic of Phalanges
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JASC: Journal of Applied Science and Computations ISSN NO: 1076-5131 Skeleton Bone Age Analysis from Epiphysis and Metaphysic of Phalanges Navjot Kaur#1, Kulvinder Singh Mann*2 #CSE Department, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College Ludhiana, India *IT Department, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College Ludhiana, India [email protected], [email protected] Abstract— Computer systems have been broadly used in the field of Medical Science. From many years, assortment of studies has been done to determine different methods to identify the age of child using their bone characters. Bone age assessment is a technique that is very widely used by child development specialists and in the study of forensic science. The decision-making process in these assessment techniques, however, depends on the expert’s opinion; hence, the assessment results may differ from expert to expert. In the paper, we present the automatic bone age assessment using phalanges, metacarpal bones in addition to ulna and radius. The motive of automatic bone age assessment with computers is to provide the decision process more clinical and accordingly allow more steady results to be obtained. So, for this feature extraction also play a pivotal role in assessment method in order to classify the test sample. In the proposed work, we find performance metric like accuracy, error and comparison with other technologies under MATLAB software. Keywords— Bone Age, Decision Making, Feature extraction, PCA, ICA, Fuzzy Logic, Atlas, Region of Interest (ROI) . I. INTRODUCTION Bone age assessment can be used to determine the level of maturity of child’s bone. it helps to measure human growth as childhood, puberty, young adult, middle adult, and senior citizen. These changes can only be seen through x-ray. There are a total of 206 different bones in human body. In paediatric radiology, bone age assessment is considered as clinical procedure to estimate the growth rate of the children’s body. Left hand wrist radiograph (x-ray) image is taken as input and then the bone age of children will be determined. There are many handful methods available to estimate the skeletal maturity of a children’s bone. Bone age assessment study helps doctors to determine the growth and maturity of a child's skeletal system. The bone age estimation is generally done by a single x-ray image of the left hand, wrist, and fingers. It is very simple, basic, safe and painless method that uses very few amount of radiation. The bone age is calculated in years. The fingers and wrist of the child’s radiographic images contain growth plates placed in growth zoning at both ends. The special cells in growth plates will estimate and calculate the growth of the bones as well as fingers. Because of fewer minerals in x-ray images the growth plates can be located easily in x-rays. As a person’s body grows the growth plate will change its appearance in the x-ray images and become thinner, steadily the growth plates gets closed. A doctor can allocate bone age based on the appearance of the growth plates and bones. A child's skeletal maturity is allotted by using digital atlas which helps in determining standard x-ray images with the atlas which are more closely related to the appearance of the child's bones on the x-ray. Volume 5, Issue 8, August /2018 Page No:649 JASC: Journal of Applied Science and Computations ISSN NO: 1076-5131 A. Bone Development Skeletal maturity is an estimation of development of bone incorporating the size, shape and degree of mineralization of bone to explain its proximity to full maturity. The determination of skeletal maturity involves a rigorous examination of various factors and fundamental knowledge of the diverse processes by which bone develops. Longitudinal growth in the long bones of the extremities occurs through the process known as endochondral ossification. In contrast, the breadth of the bones increases by the growth of skeletal tissue emerged directly from fibrous membrane. The latter is the process through which ossification of the calvarium, the flat bones of the pelvis, the scapulae, and the body of the mandible occurs. Initially, calcification emergences near the middle of the shaft of long bones in a region called the primary ossification center. Although many flat bones, including the carpal bones, ossify completely from the primary core, all of the long bones develop through secondary cores that appear at the edge of the cartilage of the bone. Fig 1 : Schematic Representation of Endochondral Bone Formation The bone ossified from the primary center part is called as diaphysis, while the bone ossified from the secondary center called as epiphysis. As the secondary center is steadily ossified, the cartilage is substituted by bone until only a thin layer of cartilage the epiphyseal plate, split the diaphyseal bone from the epiphysis. The part of the diaphysis that is adjoining the epiphysis is called as the metaphysis and depicts the growing end of the bone. As long as the epiphyseal cartilage plate remains, both the diaphysis and epiphysis expand to grow, but, eventually, the osteoblasts cease to replicate and the epiphyseal plate is ossified. At that time, the osseous structures of the diaphysis and epiphysis are fused and growth ceases [1]. Volume 5, Issue 8, August /2018 Page No:650 JASC: Journal of Applied Science and Computations ISSN NO: 1076-5131 During the fetal phase of life, the fundamental interest in skeletal growth is associated with the diagnosis of prematurity. The ending of the embryonic period and the beginning of the foetus is marked through the event of calcification, which begins at 8 or 9 weeks. By the 13th fetal week, most primary cores of the tubular bones are well-developed and merged into diaphyses, and, at the time of birth, all diaphysis are entirely ossified, while many epiphyses are still cartilaginous. Ossification of the distal femoral epiphysis commences during the last two months of gestation, and the secondary core is found in most full term babies. Similarly, the ossification core for the proximal epiphysis of the humerus generally starts appearing at the 40th week of gestation. On the other hand, the cores for the proximal epiphyses of the femur and tibia may not be found in full term infants, but mainly appear in the first few months of life [2]. After birth, the epiphyses steadily ossify in a largely prescribed and predictable manner, and, at the time of skeletal maturity, fuses with the main body of the bone. Comparing the degree of maturation of the epiphyses to the normal age-related standards forms the basis for the estimation of skeletal maturity, the measure of which is commonly called “bone age” or “skeletal age”. II. RELATED WORK The hand bone development levels and methods were proposed in and as an Atlas by W. W..Greulich and S. I. Pyle [1] in 1959 from Stanford University Press, Stanford, California USA. Different Radiographs i.e. x-rays of left shoulder, elbow, hand, knee and hip were captured. These images were taken at the span of three months up to five years and then subsequently taken on yearly basis. The data collection step was executed from11931 to 1942 years covering around 1000 children radiographs as a source. Finally in the yearr1950, a research Atlas has been issued. For boys and girls different Atlas has been published since they both mature at different rates. These atlases are taken as the fundamental model for determining age related changes in the human bone architectural structure. Another atlas has been given by Tanner and Whitehouse in the form of TW: TW1, TW2, TW3 [2] in the yearr1962. Here the study was concentrated on the age determination but relies on the bone standard maturity. This method used bone joints site as ROIs for bone maturity . Each ROI is moreover divided into 3 parts i.e. epiphysis, diaphysis and metaphysic. Out of these three, the epiphysis ossifies from the age zero to teen age and later gets combined with diaphysis. So the age assessment of the TW and GP methods is only applicable till 19 years. Pal and king in 1983 [3], designed the algorithm using fuzzy set theory, and employed it to the X-ray image edge detection algorithm. They have utilized ambiguity functions and continuous use of contrast enhancers to separate areas inside the plane of attribute that can be used for extra extraction of features from film of X-ray. An algorithm for automatic threshold gray level using fuzzy exponent and fuzzy set entropy was also proposed. After a long span of time, a substitute named FELS (Fels Longitudinal Study) was proposed by W.M.Cameron et al. [4]. It is an automated system which scores or grades for each and every bone as an input for calculating the age. Contrary to the GP and TW methods, in this the grade distribution is calculated from the same age group as well. In this, More than 130 points are selected for each and every bone for evaluation. This method also forecast the error correction for determination. Even they have assumed that input images are noise free. But too an extend it is a complicated method as not available in the form of software.Next model was given by David J Michael and Alan C Nelson which is the first automated system known as HANDX (1989) for bone age assessment. In this, System is sub-divided into three basic stages pre-processing, segmentation and measurement. Histogram modification algorithm is used as a model for enhancing the image. Volume 5, Issue 8, August /2018 Page No:651 JASC: Journal of Applied Science and Computations ISSN NO: 1076-5131 In this algorithm, initial step is to create a histogram and by using Gaussian distribution function, it is segmented into 3 groups as background, soft-tissues and bone pixels [5].