Texture Analysis Diagnosis of Osteoporosis

Suhani Pant2,3, Vasiliki N. Ikonomidou1

2015

George Mason University Bioengineering Department, 2Governors School @ Innovation Park, 3Osbourn Park High School

pant.suhani97@gmail.com

Introduction

Methods

Results
Rows

T0 min
T1 min
T3 min
T5 min
T7 min

T9 min
T11min
T15min
T30min
T60min
T3hr

P-values
3
0.012718
4
0.015685
5
0.006502
9
0.009937
19
0.016945
22
0.010435
37
0.007393
41
0.005151

This table represents the Pvalues obtained from t-Tests

performed for the medicine
and no medicine patient
groups.
Statistical analysis shows that
there is a significant difference
among the two patient groups.

Mean values distribution for Row 3

Image courtesy of Your Home Companion

The patient images and their masks were multiplied using MATLAB
and a set of mean values were obtained. These values were used
to conduct two-sample assuming unequal variances t-Tests for the
two patient groups.
Box-and-whisker plots were created for the mean value data from
each experimental group to differentiate between the two .

Osteoporosis is a disease that causes thinning and

weakening of bones in a silent and progressive manner. More
than 10 million people in America have osteoporosis and half
of women aged 50 and older will have an osteoporosis
related fracture in their lifetime. Since the disease does not
display any symptoms until a fracture occurs, it is often left
undiagnosed. 2When fractures occur in older people, they
become bed ridden and their limited mobility leads to failure
of other body organs.
1

DEXA scans are currently utilized to diagnose osteoporosis

through detection of bone density ratio. A setback of this
method is that it is often not prescribed to patients until an
older age, and even when it is, the recommendations are
ignored. Thus, medical scans that patients are already
receiving, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), can
be used for further assessment at a minimal cost. 3Texture is
the characteristic of an image based on the distribution of
gray-tone levels; the differences in gray-tone between
neighboring pixels of an image prompts the quantification of
values corresponding to what is known as object texture. This
research study used texture analysis techniques on knee
MRI images of patients receiving medicine for osteoporosis
and of healthy patients to quantify differences in texture.

This box-and-whisker plot

represents the distribution
of the mean value data for
Row 3 of each patient
group. Although the data
were spread out through
similar ranges for both
groups, it is evident that
the means and distribution
were separate, which
allows for the two patient
groups to be distinguished.

Conclusions
COR_IN_TSE_LEFT image

ROI is drawn on the image

Image is masked

The results from t-Tests show that there is a significant difference in the knee
MRI images obtained from patients taking medicine to treat osteoporosis and
patients not taking medicine. Therefore, texture analysis is a viable method to
use to detect osteoporosis in patients.

References

Acknowledgements

The code above multiplies the masked image

with the original patient image to isolate the
ROIs and outputs a set of mean values.

Each patient had a set of MATLAB mean values

that was used to perform t-tests and create boxand-whisker plots based on different rows in Excel.

Data used for this research were obtained

from the Osteoarthritis Initiative Database.
George Mason Universitys facilities and
funding were utilized to conduct this research.
Mrs. Amy Adams provided her guidance
throughout the Aspiring Scientists Summer
Internship Program. Vikas Kotari supervised
the familiarization process of the MIPAV
software. Special thanks to Dr. Vasiliki
Ikonomidou for constantly providing support
and direction throughout the project.

Zelman, D. (2015, February 27). What is

Osteoporosis? - WebMD. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
2
Osteoporosis: A Resource from the American College
of Preventive Medicine, ACPM: American College of
Preventive Medicine, 2009.
3
R. M. Haralick, K. Shanmugam, and I. Dinstein,
texture Features for Image Classification, IEEE
Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, vol.
SMC-3, no. 6, pp. 610621, Nov. 1973.
4
Study Overview and Objectives, Osteoarthritis
Initiative: a knee health study, 2013. [Online]. Available:
http://oai.epi-ucsf.org/datarelease/StudyOverview.asp.
Retrieved July 23, 2015.
1