Opportunistic Screening for Low Bone Mineral Density in Routine Computed Tomography Scans: A Brazilian Validation Study.

Introduction/background: Osteoporotic fractures are a major health concern worldwide due to high mortality rates, deterioration in quality of life, and elevated healthcare costs related to hospital treatment. However, most patients who sustain an osteoporotic fracture have never been formally screened for osteoporosis. Opportunistic screening of osteoporosis through conventional computed tomography (CT) scans performed for unrelated reasons could help identify patients with low bone mass.

Protocol for capturing 3D facial meshes for rhinoseptoplasty planning.

Objectives: To present and execute a protocol for the capture of 3D facial images using photogrammetry through the open access software Blender and its add-on OrtogOnBlender (OOB) and to evaluate the compatibility of the 3D meshes generated with Computed tomography (CT) of the sinuses.

Methods: Individuals >18 years old, candidates for Rhinoseptoplasty in a tertiary hospital, were submitted to a photographic session to perform the standardized protocol. In the session, divided into 3 phases, sequential photos were taken for processing the photogrammetry in the OOB and producing 3D meshes of the face.

Direct and virtual measurements of abdominal aortic aneurysms: three-dimensional printed models.

Objective: To validate the use of a three-dimensional printing system for metric and volumetric analysis of the segments of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).

Materials And Methods: In patients scheduled to undergo endovascular AAA repair, the computed tomography angiography (CTA) measurements obtained during the preoperative assessment of the patients were compared with those obtained by computed tomography of individualized three-dimensional biomodels.

Results: The volumetric assessment showed a discrepancy of 3-12%, and the difference between the areas was 10-16%.

A Mathematical Morphology-Based Filter for Noise Reduction and Detail Preservation in Low-Dose Dental CT Images.

During the acquisition on a low-dose radiation computed tomography (CT) scan, images are usually marked by heavy noise and undesired artifacts, which dramatically reduce its applicability in the image processing workflow. A noise reduction and detail preservation filter based on mathematical morphology is presented in this paper. The filter is geared to allow control of an opening operator followed by a systematic contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) in conjunction with a reconstruction by dilation in last stage.

Modeling a System for Generating Structured Reports.

The purpose of this research is to make the medical report generation process more practical, fast and reliable, both for the health professional and for the patient. We created an ontology and modeling of a structured report (SR) Standard DICOM SR.

Three Dimensional Virtual Planning Through Cone Beam Computed Tomography for Surgical Guidance Production.

This paper describes a methodology through digital planning and computed tomography for the purpose of making surgical guides for insertion of skeletal anchorage devices in dentistry. Mini-orthodontic screws for anchorage are inserted virtually in the region of interest located between the teeth of the second premolar and first molar bilaterally. DICOM images were converted to STL format and overlaid by scanning the upper plaster model in order to plan the surgical guide virtually.

A Serious Game for Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rehabilitation: Software Development Aspects and Game Engagement Assessment.

This work presents the steps for developing a serious game that allows the interaction through natural gestures, whose main purpose is to contribute to the treatment of individuals who have suffered an injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). In addition to the serious game development process, the users' gaming experience were performed. Through the evaluation assessment, positive results were obtained in relation to various aspects of the game engagement, proving the playful factor of this activity.

CTdBem - A New Protocol for Ultra Low Radiation Dose MDCT.

This study describes a novel method of obtaining low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans followed by imaging postprocessing that provides diagnostic quality to such low-dose exams. In addition, we compared the Total Radiation Doses (DLP) of the 64-channel MDCT x 16-channel MDCT for a new Dental CT - CTdBem protocol for hospital use. DLP data obtained from 20 patients using 16-channel MDCT was compared with 20 other patients using 64-channel MDCT.

Automatic Identification of Glaucoma Using Deep Learning Methods.

This paper proposes an automatic classification method to detect glaucoma in fundus images. The method is based on training a neural network using public image databases. The network used in this paper is the GoogLeNet, adapted for this proposal.

Locally Adaptive Operators for Red Lesions Detection in Eye Fundus Images.

One of the major features required by automated software tools of screening for diabetic retinopathy is the detection of red lesions. This paper presents a new automatic method in order to locate red lesions in color eye fundus images. The method relies on mathematical morphology operators and has a coarse and a fine detection stages, respectively.

A Case-Based Study with Radiologists Performing Diagnosis Tasks in Virtual Reality.

In radiology diagnosis, medical images are most often visualized slice by slice. At the same time, the visualization based on 3D volumetric rendering of the data is considered useful and has increased its field of application. In this work, we present a case-based study with 16 medical specialists to assess the diagnostic effectiveness of a Virtual Reality interface in fracture identification over 3D volumetric reconstructions.

Serious Games for Parkinson's Disease Fine Motor Skills Rehabilitation Using Natural Interfaces.

Parkinson's Disease rehabilitation can be long and boring being difficult to maintain patient engagement on therapy programs. Novel technologies are allowing computer games to be played throught natural interfaces. This paper presents the development and assessment of a system of serious games for fine motor skills rehabilitation using natural interfaces.

Use of Flowchart for Automation of Clinical Protocols in mHealth.

For healthcare professionals to use mobile applications we need someone who knows software development, provide them. In healthcare institutions, health professionals use clinical protocols to govern care, and sometimes these documents are computerized through mobile applications to assist them. This work aims to present a proposal of an application of flow as a way of describing clinical protocols for automatic generation of mobile applications to assist health professionals.

Automated Image Retrieval of Chest CT Images Based on Local Grey Scale Invariant Features.

Textual-based tools are regularly employed to retrieve medical images for reading and interpretation using current retrieval Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) but pose some drawbacks. All-purpose content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems are limited when dealing with medical images and do not fit well into PACS workflow and clinical practice. This paper presents an automated image retrieval approach for chest CT images based local grey scale invariant features from a local database.

An Optimized Superpixel Clustering Approach for High-Resolution Chest CT Image Segmentation.

Lung segmentation is a fundamental step in many image analysis applications for lung diseases and abnormalities in thoracic computed tomography (CT). However, due to the large variations in pathology that may be present in thoracic CT images, it is difficult to extract the lung regions accurately. A major insight to deal with this problem is the existence of new approaches to cope with quality and performance.

Evaluating the Impact of Player Experience in the Design of a Serious Game for Upper Extremity Stroke Rehabilitation.

Video games have become a major entertainment industry and one of the most popular leisure forms, ranging from laboratory experiments to a mainstream cultural medium. Indeed, current games are multimodal and multidimensional products, relying on sophisticated features including not only a narrative-driven story but also impressive graphics and detailed settings. All of these elements helped to create a seamless and appealing product that have resulted in a growing number of players and in the number of game genres.

A Serious Game for Upper Limb Stroke Rehabilitation Using Biofeedback and Mirror-Neurons Based Training.

Upper limb stroke rehabilitation requires early, intensive and repetitive practice to be effective. Consequently, it is often difficult to keep patients committed to their rehabilitation regimen. In addition to direct measures of rehabilitation achievable through targeted assessments, other factors can indirectly lead to rehabilitation.