The development of the Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based severity inspection model for ankylosing spondylitis (AS) could support health professionals to rapidly assess the severity of the disease, enhance proficiency, and reduce the demands of human resources. This paper aims to develop an AI-based severity inspection model for AS using patients' X-ray images and modified Stoke Ankylosing Spondylitis Spinal Score (mSASSS). The numerical simulation with AI is developed following the progress of data preprocessing, building and testing the model, and then the model. The training data is preprocessed by inviting three experts to check the X-ray images of 222 patients following the Gold Standard. The model is then developed through two stages, including keypoint detection and mSASSS evaluation. The two-stage AI-based severity inspection model for AS was developed to automatically detect spine points and evaluate mSASSS scores. At last, the data obtained from the developed model was compared with those from experts' assessment to analyse the accuracy of the model. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. The spine point detection at the first stage achieved 1.57 micrometres in mean error distance with the ground truth, and the second stage of the classification network can reach 0.81 in mean accuracy. The model can correctly identify 97.4% patches belonging to mSASSS score 3, while those belonging to score 0 can still be classified into scores 1 or 2. The automatic severity inspection model for AS developed in this paper is accurate and can support health professionals in rapidly assessing the severity of AS, enhancing assessment proficiency, and reducing the demands of human resources.

State-of-the-art computer- and robot-assisted surgery systems rely on intraoperative imaging technologies such as computed tomography and fluoroscopy to provide detailed 3D visualizations of patient anatomy. However, these methods expose both patients and clinicians to ionizing radiation. This study introduces a radiation-free approach for 3D spine reconstruction using RGB-D data. Inspired by the "mental map" surgeons form during procedures, we present SurgPointTransformer, a shape completion method that reconstructs unexposed spinal regions from sparse surface observations. The method begins with a vertebra segmentation step that extracts vertebra-level point clouds for subsequent shape completion. SurgPointTransformer then uses an attention mechanism to learn the relationship between visible surface features and the complete spine structure. The approach is evaluated on an <i>ex vivo</i> dataset comprising nine samples, with CT-derived data used as ground truth. SurgPointTransformer significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving a Chamfer distance of 5.39 mm, an F-score of 0.85, an Earth mover's distance of 11.00 and a signal-to-noise ratio of 22.90 dB. These results demonstrate the potential of our method to reconstruct 3D vertebral shapes without exposing patients to ionizing radiation. This work contributes to the advancement of computer-aided and robot-assisted surgery by enhancing system perception and intelligence.

Retrospective study. The study aimed to develop and authenticated a deep learning model based on X-ray images to accurately diagnose fresh thoracolumbar vertebral compression fractures. In clinical practice, diagnosing fresh vertebral compression fractures often requires MRI. However, due to the scarcity of MRI resources and the high time and economic costs involved, some patients may not receive timely diagnosis and treatment. Using a deep learning model combined with X-rays for diagnostic assistance could potentially serve as an alternative to MRI. In this study, the main collection included X-ray images suspected of thoracolumbar vertebral compression fractures from the municipal shared database between December 2012 and February 2024. Deep learning models were constructed using frameworks of EfficientNet, MobileNet, and MnasNet, respectively. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of the deep learning model using the validation set. The diagnostic performance of the models was evaluated using metrics such as AUC value, accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, F1 score, precision, and ROC curve. Finally, the deep learning models were compared with evaluations from two spine surgeons of different experience levels on the control set. This study included a total of 3025 lateral X-ray images from 2224 patients. The data set was divided into a training set of 2388 cases, a validation set of 482 cases, and a control set of 155 cases. In the validation set, the three groups of DL models had accuracies of 83.0%, 82.4%, and 82.2%, respectively. The AUC values were 0.861, 0.852, and 0.865, respectively. In the control set, the accuracies of the three groups of DL models were 78.1%, 78.1%, and 80.7%, respectively, all higher than spinal surgeons and significantly higher than junior spine surgeon. This study developed deep learning models for detecting fresh vertebral compression fractures, demonstrating high accuracy.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) in the pediatric population presents a unique challenge in diagnosis and prognosis due to the complexity of performing clinical assessments on children. Accurate evaluation of structural changes in the spinal cord is essential for effective treatment planning. This study aims to evaluate structural characteristics in pediatric patients with SCI by comparing cross-sectional area (CSA), anterior-posterior (AP) width, and right-left (RL) width across all vertebral levels of the spinal cord between typically developing (TD) and participants with SCI. We employed deep learning techniques to utilize these measures for detecting SCI cases and determining their injury severity. Sixty-one pediatric participants (ages 6-18), including 20 with chronic SCI and 41 TD, were enrolled and scanned by using a 3T MRI scanner. All SCI participants underwent the International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury (ISNCSCI) test to assess their neurologic function and determine their American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (AIS) category. T2-weighted MRI scans were utilized to measure CSA, AP width, and RL widths along the entire cervical and thoracic cord. These measures were automatically extracted at every vertebral level of the spinal cord by using the spinal cord toolbox. Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were utilized to classify participants into SCI or TD groups and determine their AIS classification based on structural parameters and demographic factors such as age and height. Significant differences (<i>P</i> < .05) were found in CSA, AP width, and RL width between SCI and TD participants, indicating notable structural alterations due to SCI. The CNN-based models demonstrated high performance, achieving 96.59% accuracy in distinguishing SCI from TD participants. Furthermore, the models determined AIS category classification with 94.92% accuracy. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating cross-sectional structural imaging measures with deep learning methods for classification and severity assessment of pediatric SCI. The deep learning approach outperforms traditional machine learning models in diagnostic accuracy, offering potential improvements in patient care in pediatric SCI management.

The differentiation between traumatic and degenerative rotator cuff tears (RCTs remains a diagnostic challenge with significant implications for treatment planning. While magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is standard practice, traditional radiological interpretation has shown limited reliability in distinguishing these etiologies. This study evaluates the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) models, specifically a multimodal vision transformer (ViT), to differentiate between traumatic and degenerative RCT. In this retrospective, single-centre study, 99 shoulder MRIs were analysed from patients who underwent surgery at a specialised university shoulder unit between 2016 and 2019. The cohort was divided into training (n = 79) and validation (n = 20) sets. The traumatic group required a documented relevant trauma (excluding simple lifting injuries), previously asymptomatic shoulder and MRI within 3 months posttrauma. The degenerative group was of similar age and injured tendon, with patients presenting with at least 1 year of constant shoulder pain prior to imaging and no trauma history. The ViT was subsequently combined with demographic data to finalise in a multimodal ViT. Saliency maps are utilised as an explainability tool. The multimodal ViT model achieved an accuracy of 0.75 ± 0.08 with a recall of 0.8 ± 0.08, specificity of 0.71 ± 0.11 and a F1 score of 0.76 ± 0.1. The model maintained consistent performance across different patient subsets, demonstrating robust generalisation. Saliency maps do not show a consistent focus on the rotator cuff. AI shows potential in supporting the challenging differentiation between traumatic and degenerative RCT on MRI. The achieved accuracy of 75% is particularly significant given the similar groups which presented a challenging diagnostic scenario. Saliency maps were utilised to ensure explainability, the given lack of consistent focus on rotator cuff tendons hints towards underappreciated aspects in the differentiation. Not applicable.

To establish an ultrasound-based radiomics model to differentiate fibro adipose vascular anomaly (FAVA) and intramuscular venous malformation (VM). The clinical data of 65 patients with VM and 31 patients with FAVA who were treated and pathologically confirmed were retrospectively analyzed. Dimensionality reduction was performed on these features using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). An ultrasound-based radiomics model was established using support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) models. The diagnostic efficiency of this model was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic. A total of 851 features were obtained by feature extraction, and 311 features were screened out using the <i>t</i>-test and Mann-Whitney <i>U</i> test. The dimensionality reduction was performed on the remaining features using LASSO. Finally, seven features were included to establish the diagnostic prediction model. In the testing group, the AUC, accuracy and specificity of the SVM model were higher than those of the RF model (0.841 [0.815-0.867] vs. 0.791 [0.759-0.824], 96.6% vs. 93.1%, and 100.0% vs. 90.5%, respectively). However, the sensitivity of the SVM model was lower than that of the RF model (88.9% vs. 100.0%). In this study, a prediction model based on ultrasound radiomics was developed to distinguish FAVA from VM. The study achieved high classification accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. SVM model is superior to RF model and provides a new perspective and tool for clinical diagnosis.

Cervical spondylosis, a complex and prevalent condition, demands precise and efficient diagnostic techniques for accurate assessment. While MRI offers detailed visualization of cervical spine anatomy, manual interpretation remains labor-intensive and prone to error. To address this, we developed an innovative AI-assisted Expert-based Diagnosis System that automates both segmentation and diagnosis of cervical spondylosis using MRI. Leveraging multi-center datasets of cervical MRI images from patients with cervical spondylosis, our system features a pathology-guided segmentation model capable of accurately segmenting key cervical anatomical structures. The segmentation is followed by an expert-based diagnostic framework that automates the calculation of critical clinical indicators. Our segmentation model achieved an impressive average Dice coefficient exceeding 0.90 across four cervical spinal anatomies and demonstrated enhanced accuracy in herniation areas. Diagnostic evaluation further showcased the system's precision, with the lowest mean average errors (MAE) for the C2-C7 Cobb angle and the Maximum Spinal Cord Compression (MSCC) coefficient. In addition, our method delivered high accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 scores in herniation localization, K-line status assessment, T2 hyperintensity detection, and Kang grading. Comparative analysis and external validation demonstrate that our system outperforms existing methods, establishing a new benchmark for segmentation and diagnostic tasks for cervical spondylosis.

Hand and foot digital radiography (DR) is an indispensable tool in medical imaging, with varying diagnostic requirements necessitating different hand and foot positionings. Accurate positioning is crucial for obtaining diagnostically valuable images. Furthermore, adjusting exposure parameters such as exposure area based on patient conditions helps minimize the likelihood of image retakes. We propose a personalized positioning and exposure assistant capable of automatically recognizing hand and foot positionings and recommending appropriate exposure parameters to achieve these objectives. The assistant comprises three modules: (1) Progressive Iterative Hand-Foot Tracker (PIHFT) to iteratively locate hands or feet in RGB images, providing the foundation for accurate pose estimation; (2) Multi-Task Shared Pose Estimation Transformer (MTSPET), a Transformer-based model that encompasses hand and foot estimation branches with similar network architectures, sharing a common backbone. MTSPET outperformed MediaPipe in the hand pose estimation task and successfully transferred this capability to the foot pose estimation task; (3) Domain Expertise-embedded Positioning and Exposure Assistant (DEPEA), which combines the key-point coordinates of hands and feet with specific positioning and exposure parameter requirements, capable of checking patient positioning and inferring exposure areas and Regions of Interest (ROIs) of Digital Automatic Exposure Control (DAEC). Additionally, two datasets were collected and used to train MTSPET. A preliminary clinical trial showed strong agreement between PPEA's outputs and manual annotations, indicating the system's effectiveness in typical clinical scenarios. The contributions of this study lay the foundation for personalized, patient-specific imaging strategies, ultimately enhancing diagnostic outcomes and minimizing the risk of errors in clinical settings.

Ultrasound (US) imaging is increasingly used in spinal procedures due to its real-time, radiation-free capabilities; however, its effectiveness is hindered by shadowing artifacts that obscure deeper tissue structures. Traditional approaches, such as CT-to-US registration, incorporate anatomical information from preoperative CT scans to guide interventions, but they are limited by complex registration requirements, differences in spine curvature, and the need for recent CT imaging. Recent shape completion methods can offer an alternative by reconstructing spinal structures in US data, while being pretrained on large set of publicly available CT scans. However, these approaches are typically offline and have limited reproducibility. In this work, we introduce a novel integrated system that combines robotic ultrasound with real-time shape completion to enhance spinal visualization. Our robotic platform autonomously acquires US sweeps of the lumbar spine, extracts vertebral surfaces from ultrasound, and reconstructs the complete anatomy using a deep learning-based shape completion network. This framework provides interactive, real-time visualization with the capability to autonomously repeat scans and can enable navigation to target locations. This can contribute to better consistency, reproducibility, and understanding of the underlying anatomy. We validate our approach through quantitative experiments assessing shape completion accuracy and evaluations of multiple spine acquisition protocols on a phantom setup. Additionally, we present qualitative results of the visualization on a volunteer scan.

Bone marrow adipose tissue, as a distinct adipose subtype, has been implicated in the pathophysiology of skeletal, metabolic, and hematopoietic disorders. To identify its underlying genetic factors, we utilized a deep learning algorithm capable of quantifying bone marrow fat fraction (BMFF) in the vertebrae and proximal femur using magnetic resonance imaging data of over 38,000 UK Biobank participants. Genome-wide association analyses uncovered 373 significant BMFF-associated variants (P-value < 5 × 10^-9), with enrichment in bone remodeling, metabolism, and hematopoiesis pathway. Furthermore, genetic correlation highlighted a significant association between BMFF and skeletal disease. In about 300,000 individuals, polygenic risk scores derived from three proximal femur BMFF were significantly associated with increased osteoporosis risk. Notably, Mendelian randomization analyses revealed a causal link between proximal femur BMFF and osteoporosis. Here, we show critical insights into the genetic determinants of BMFF and offer perspectives on the biological mechanisms driving osteoporosis development.