Segmentation of Human Vertebral Spine -FEA Analysis

Abstract

Back pain is one of the most common health problems facing people today. It is the second most common reason for a doctor’s visit, behind only to the common cold. Billions of dollars are spent annually on treating back pain, which is also a very common cause of disability. More than 90% of people will experience an episode of debilitating back pain at some point in their lifetime. Once the chronic disc problem has been diagnosed, the conservative treatments like: speci?c rest, friction force medical aid or physiotherapy and exercise are followed. When correctly diagnosed, an excessive amount of medical/surgical treatments can be avoided. The aim of the study is to generate a mesh model and numerically simulate the biomechanical characteristics of the human spine, namely two vertebrae (L4 and L5) and inter vertebrae disc using ?nite element analysis (FEA) technique. In this process the bony areas of every MRI scanned image is segmented and the boundary lines are stacked into a smooth surface. Additionally, the technique generates the quantity mesh exploitation linear unit that is used to process the mesh for agreement. Moreover, L4 and L5 with disc were considered as linear materials with the exception of the ligaments. The contact behaviour of the two bones, simulation of disc and obtained displacements and stress describe about the pre-operation of human lumbar spine. The results depict that the potential fracture of the considered patient with respect to displacements. In this paper the implementation of bilateral ?lter technique is discussed . Using various edge detection algorithms namely, Canny edge detection, Sobel edge detection, Prewitt edge detection and Roberts edge detection, the results were compared. Among them, spine Canny edge detection algorithm produced effective output using MATLAB estimating the following parameters like total deformation, normal elastic strain, normal stress. With the help of these parameters, the human spine model was analyzed using the simulation software ANSYS. The implementation has done with MATLAB, whereas the stress and strain have been found at the plate bone of aspect joint of L4 and L5.