Design and application of a digital orthopaedics platform for clinical research.

Abstract

Objective To study and develop a digital 3D orthopaedics imaging software that can be efiqciently used on today's main-stream personal computers.Methods From January 2007 to June 2009,including 3 sets of more than 300 clinical multi-slice CT images involving orthopaedics trauma,joint,spine,orthopaedics tumor;a few interstitial implants with applied generally;and also full body multi-slice CT images of 20 healthy volunteers.There were 10 males and 10 females with an average age of 24.5 years (ranged from 21 to 30 years).By adapting latest image processing algorithms,interactive graphics methods,and reversing engineering and hardware software optimization techniques,a digital orthopaedics platform was created,which allowed user to interactively manipulate,display large.volume DICeM data produced by clinical CT scans in 3D.Results Through inter-disciplinary efforts of medical and computer experts,the new system was created and named as Superlmage system,which was able to achieve interactive speed on today's main-stream personal computers.Function included hi-resolution 3D surface and volume rendering,interactive segmentation in 3D,editing,color MPR,operation simulation etc.Superlmage system also included a rich reference database,full body digital bones,virtual models of interstitial implants,and patient database.The system also supported remote data sharing and interaction between different installations.Conclusion PC based digital 3D orthopaedics imaging software can help clinical doctors,medical students and researcher in many areas including diagnosis,treatment planning,patients' follow-up and clinical research.That also gives doctors an effective tool for distributable store,share,manage medical image data,and assist in education and digital human anatomy study. Key words: Imaging,three-dimensional; Signal processing,computer-assisted; Biomedical research