Development and Evaluation of a Rib Statistical Shape Model for Thoracic Surgery

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2022 Jul:2022:3758-3763. doi: 10.1109/EMBC48229.2022.9870985.

Abstract

Patients with advanced cancer undergoing chest wall resection may require reconstruction. Currently, rib prostheses are created by segmenting computed tomography images, which is time-consuming and labour intensive. The aim was to optimise the production of digital rib models based on a patient's age, weight, height and gender. A statistical shape model of human ribs was created and used to synthetise rib models, which were compared to the ones produced by segmentation and mirroring. The segmentation took 11.56±1.60 min compared to 0.027 ±0.009 min using the new technique. The average mesh error between the mirroring technique and segmentation was 0.58±0.25 mm (right ribs), and 0.87±0.18 mm (left ribs), compared to 1.37±0.66 mm ( ) and 1.68 ±0.77 mm ( ), respectively, for the new technique. The new technique is promising for the efficiency and ease-of-use in the clinical environment. Clinical Relevance- This is an optimised 3D modelling method providing clinicians with a time-efficient technique to create patient-specific rib prostheses, without any expertise or software knowledge required.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Models, Statistical
  • Ribs / diagnostic imaging
  • Ribs / surgery
  • Software
  • Thoracic Surgery*
  • Thoracic Surgical Procedures*