Bone-age assessment workstation software

描述（由申请人提供）： 放射学骨龄评估被广泛用作临床实践和研究的工具。使用传统的基于图谱的方法，受过训练的读者通过在背照式观察盒上观察青少年手部X光片来进行骨龄评分。读片员系统地将射线照片上的感兴趣区域（ROI）与代表骨生长不同阶段的图谱中的图像和书面描述进行比较。对于每个ROI，读取器为与图谱最匹配的阶段分配分数。 基于骨密度的骨龄评估存在一些困难和不便，这些困难和不便会增加读数的时间和成本，并损害该方法的精确度和准确度。记录错误的可能性也是存在的，因为读者必须手动将分数输入数据表。 我们建议开发一个计算机图形用户界面（GUI）工具来执行Tanner-Whitehouse（TW 2）骨龄评估。将来自坦纳图谱的图像和书面描述输入计算机数据库，并与待评价的数字化手部X线片一起沿着显示在监视器上。GUI工具将具有图像调整工具，将开发软件以自动创建评价图像的ROI。一旦读者对分数感到满意，它就可以自动放入评分数据库中，并在稍后的时间进行检索以进行分析。 该系统将比传统的TW 2评分更方便，成本更低，我们还假设精度将得到提高。由于它将为Windows操作系统开发，因此可以广泛提供给其他研究人员和临床医生。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Radiographic bone-age assessment is widely used as a tool in clinical practice and for research studies. With the traditional atlas-based method, a trained reader performs bone-age scoring by viewing a juvenile hand radiograph on a back-illuminated viewing box. The reader systematically compares regions of interest (ROI's) on the radiograph to images and written descriptions in an atlas that represent different stages of bone growth. For each ROI, the reader assigns a score for the stage that best matches the atlas. Atlas-based bone-age assessment suffers from several difficulties and inconveniences that can increase the time and cost of the readings and that compromise the precision and accuracy of the method. The possibility of recording errors also exists since the reader must enter the scores to a data sheet by hand. We propose to develop a computer graphical user interface (GUI) tool to perform Tanner-Whitehouse (TW2) bone-age assessment. The images and written description from the Tanner atlas will be put into a computer database and displayed on the monitor along with the digitized hand radiograph to be evaluated. The GUI tool will have image adjustment tools and software will be developed to create automatically the ROI's for the evaluation image. Once the reader is satisfied with a score, it can be automatically put into a scoring database and retrieved for analysis at a later time. This system will be more convenient and less costly than the traditional TW2 scoring and we also hypothesize that the precision will be improved. Since it will be developed for the Windows operating system, it can be made widely available to other researchers and clinicians.