Volumic patient-specific reconstruction of muscular system based on a reduced dataset of medical images

Abstract

Three-dimensional mechanical modelling of muscles is essential for various biomechanical applications and clinical evaluation, but it requires a tedious manual processing of numerous images. A muscle reconstruction method is presented based on a reduced set of images to generate an approximate parametric object from basic dimensions of muscle contours. A regular volumic mesh is constructed based on this parametric object. The approximate object and the corresponding mesh are deformed to fit the exact muscles contours yielding patient-specific geometry. Evaluation was performed by comparison of geometry to that obtained by contouring all computed tomography (CT) slices, and by quantification of the mesh quality criteria. Muscle fatty infiltration was estimated using a threshold between fat and muscle. Volumic fat index (VFI) of a muscle was computed using first all the complete CT scan slices containing the muscle (VFI_ref) and a second time only the slices used for reconstruction (VFI_recons). Mean volume error estimation was 2.6% and hexahedron meshes fulfilled quality criteria. VFI_recons respect the individual variation of fat content.

Keywords:

• muscle reconstruction
• musculoskeletal geometry
• hip
• muscle fat
• muscle imaging
• CT scan

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by grants from EU, contract number: QLK6-CT-2002-02440-3DQCT.