Computer Aided Planning of the Puncture Site and Tract Line Vertebroplasty

"nIn this study image processing is used to localize the site of cement injection and the puncture site on the skin for vertebroplasty in the thoracolumbar spine, using image processing methods. The technique which is used is a combination of "morphological operator", "region growing" and "thresholding" using the DICOM files of CT study. The vertebra is segmented from the CT images. The axial images are used as models of the 3-dimentional image, and the result is matched on sagittal images. So by matching the information in two views the location of needle on skin can be determined automatically in a way that the needle will be passed a safe way from the skin to the precise site of injection in the body of the vertebra. The achieved results showed that this method is precise and can be used in clinical situation.