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AAMIR

Active Appearance Models in Musculo Skeletal Radiology - AAMIR

Funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF

Team: Georg Langs, Philipp Peloschek, Rene Donner, Horst Bischof, Franz Kainberger

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an incurable disease leading to severe disabling mutilations of synovial joints. RA affects predominantly the peripheral joints of the appendicular skeleton. RA is with 17% one of the leading causes of disability among persons aged 15 years or older. The prevalence is 1-2%. A recent study estimated the total cost to the North American economy caused by arthritis and its related effects to be 64 billion.

The accurate quantification of the progression of the disease is a decisive factor during its treatment. Until now mainly manual quantification procedures are utilized. They are time consuming and lack reproducibility as well as accuracy. Among others these restrictions have severe adverse effects to clinical trials and to continuous therapy of patients.

We propose a computer based method that performs the quantification by means of automated image analysis and pattern recognition. The goal is to fully automatically identify the bones of the hand/wrist and extract exact quantitative information about the extent of the erosions caused by rheumatoid arthritis based on a radiograph.

Recent publications

  • Automatic Quantification of Joint Space Narrowing and Erosions in Rheumatoid Arthritis G. Langs, P. Peloschek, H. Bischof, F. Kainberger. in IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging 2009;28(1):151-64, [PMID:19116197]
  • Sharp JT, Angwin J, Boers M, Duryea J, Finckh A, Hall JR, Kauffman JA, Landewa R, Langs G, Lukas C, Moens HJ, Peloschek P, Strand CV, van der Heijde D. Multiple computer-based methods of measuring joint space width can discriminate between treatment arms in the COBRA trial - Update of an ongoing OMERACT project. J Rheumatol. 2009;36(8):1825-8, [PMID:19671820]
  • Model-Based Erosion Spotting and Visualization in Rheumatoid Arthritis G. Langs, P. Peloschek, H. Bischof, F. Kainberger. in Academic Radiology, 2007 Oct;14(10):1179-88, [PMID:17889335]
  • An automatic model-based system for joint space measurements on hand radiographs: initial experience [abstract+pdf] Philipp Peloschek, Georg Langs, Michael Weber, Johannes Sailer, Michael Reisegger, Herwig Imhof, Horst Bischof, Franz Kainberger. in Radiology 2007 Dec;245(3):855-62
  • Computer based methods for measurement of joint space width: Update of an Ongoing OMERACT Project [pdf], John T. Sharp, Jane Angwin, Maarten Boers, Jeff Duryea, Gabriele von Ingersleben, James R. Hall, Joost A. Kauffman, Robert Landewe, Georg Langs, Cédric Lukas, ~Jean-Francis Maillefert, H. J. Bernelot Moens, Philipp Peloschek, Vibeke Strand and Desiree van der Heijde, in //Journal of Rheumatology//, 34, 2007, pp. 874-883, [PMID:17407243]