Novel Automatic Tool for Magnetic Resonance Imaging Quantification of Bone Erosion Scoring in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic disease that affects the synovial joints. Currently, the gold standard measurement for tracking the progression of the disease involves a semi-quantitative assessment of bone erosion, bone marrow edema and synovitis, as seen in magnetic resonance images (MRI). The work presented in this paper identifies how computer automation can be used to quantify bone erosion volumes in MRI without expert and time consuming interventions. This tool is fully integrated in a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system named RheumaSCORE (Softeco Sismat Srl). Preliminary results of qualitative and quantitative validation are presented and discussed at the end of the paper.