Scoliosis, the abnormal lateral curvature of the spine, is an idiopathic disease often suffered by teenagers. Normally medical doctors use X-rays to measure the Cobb angle, and then assess the severity of scoliosis with it. In this paper, we point out the superiorities of image processing technique through analyzing the existing methods in the diagnosis of scoliosis. Two kinds of image processing technique are mainly introduced for scoliosis detection. The moiré stripe images show an asymmetric deformation pattern between the left-hand side and the right-hand side of human back, and these associate with Cobb angle to detect scoliosis. In order to check scoliosis through accurate three-dimensional surface features of human back, we in the second technique use different optical imaging methods to reconstruct the three-dimensional surface model of the patient's back, and extract the characteristics of the reconstructive human back to diagnose the disease. Both approaches tried to describe symmetry discrimination of human back and correlated it with the Cobb angles. Finally, we look forward to the future development in the application of image processing technique for scoliosis detection.
Adolescent ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; methods ; Male ; Mass Screening ; Moire Topography ; Optical Imaging ; methods ; Radiography ; Scoliosis ; diagnosis ; diagnostic imaging