Abstract: Disclosed, in one general aspect, is a musculoskeletal imaging system that includes a source of feature data extracted from imaging data resulting from imaging acquisitions from joints of different individuals affected by different diseases, and this feature data includes disease characteristic categorization information for a plurality of disease categories. A comparison module is operative to compare patient imaging data resulting from an imaging acquisition from a joint of a patient with the feature data. The comparison module is also operative to provide at least one categorization indicator for the patient imaging data that indicates a correspondence between spatial information in the patient imaging data and the disease categories for which there is extracted categorization information in the feature data.

Abstract: Disclosed, in one general aspect, is a musculoskeletal imaging system that includes a source of feature data extracted from imaging data resulting from imaging acquisitions from joints of different individuals affected by different diseases, and this feature data includes disease characteristic categorization information for a plurality of disease categories. A comparison module is operative to compare patient imaging data resulting from an imaging acquisition from a joint of a patient with the feature data. The comparison module is also operative to provide at least one categorization indicator for the patient imaging data that indicates a correspondence between spatial information in the patient imaging data and the disease categories for which there is extracted categorization information in the feature data.

Abstract: Disclosed, in one general aspect, is a musculoskeletal imaging system that includes a source of feature data extracted from imaging data resulting from imaging acquisitions from joints of different individuals affected by different diseases, and this feature data includes disease characteristic categorization information for a plurality of disease categories. A comparison module is operative to compare patient imaging data resulting from an imaging acquisition from a joint of a patient with the feature data. The comparison module is also operative to provide at least one categorization indicator for the patient imaging data that indicates a correspondence between spatial information in the patient imaging data and the disease categories for which there is extracted categorization information in the feature data.

Abstract: A segmentation method and system for medical images of a structure, including at least one substructure are described herein. Examples of such structure and substructures are a vertebra and its spinal canal or a sacrum with its two foramens. The method consists of first providing a plurality of digital images representing consecutive slices of the structure. The set of images is then divided into groups for which initial substructures center position are estimated. Using this information, the pixels corresponding to each substructure and common to all the images in the group are determined. Iterations are performed between these two last steps until the best candidates are obtained. The method consists then in estimating the substructures center position in each image of the group. After the substructures have been identified in each image, the images are then processed to remove noise in the substructures, in the rest of the structure and outside the structure.