Opportunistic AI - detection of spinal anomalies indicative of osteoporosis on routine imaging
1) Vertebral height loss indicative of vertebral compression fracture
2) Vertebral trabecular bone attenuation, indicative of potential osteoporosis if low.
Such software has the potential to radically change the way that we approach primary prevention of major osteoporotic fractures but identifying patients at risk of future fracture from CT imaging already being performed for other clinical indications e.g. lung cancer screening. The epidemiological correlation between incidence of osteoporosis and COPD/Lung Cancer means the NLST dataset presents in ideal opportunity to test the performance and potential value of this AI-driven automated spinal measurement tool.
To test an AI-driven software device's ability to:
- Accurately segment vertebra on CT scans
- Accurately measure vertebra height loss
- Accurately measure vertebra trabecular bone attention, akin to bone mineral density
- Quantify the number of patients with a vertebra fracture and/or low bone density that could be detected via the NLST program and use existing literature to model the potential reduction in future fracture incidence if appropriate patients received bone strengthening agents.
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