Measurement of bone erosion cavities from CT scans

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease characterized by progressive joint destruction resulting from chronic synovial inflammation. Progression of this disease is noted by decreases in bone mineral density and joint space width, and increases in hand erosion count. Clinical scoring methods, however, are highly variable and may not be comparable between patients or across different scoring tests. Computer aided diagnostics may offer a more standardized and comparable method to measure progression of this disease. Three dimensional imaging techniques such as CT provide an accessible alternative to radiography for objectively assessing disease progression. The focus of this research was to develop and validate a method to measure the volume of cavities created in bone assessed with CT imaging.