Towards an automatic classification of spinal curves from x-ray images.

The objective of this research was to describe a multi-resolution technique for segmentation of the spinal curve on postero-anterior radiograph. Global features from the radiographs were first identified. From this approximate region, local regions of the spine curvature were iteratively filtered using diffusion and shock filters to enhance the boundaries of each vertebral body from radiographic noise. The spine curve going through the centroid of the vertebral bodies was successively identified for clinical classification of spinal deformities.