Cad-analisys of planar ostheoscintigrams for calculating the amount of skeletal metastases
The method of determining the area of skeletal metastases in patients with cancer based on CAD-analysis of planar scintigrams, the so-called «Bone Metastases Index», was developed. In the suggested method, the amount of metastases is determined without regard to the proportion of bone in the total mass of the skeleton, which greatly simplifies the entire course of the calculations. In the study, we used the scans of the patients with skeletal metastases of breast cancer, performed in a planar mode with Infinia - Hawkeye, the two-detector gamma camera manufactured by General Electric, using RFP pirfoteh-99mTc. Analysis of the images was carried out in the program created in MATLAB. The automatic segmentation of radiopharmaceutical hyperfixation zones, the calculation of their histogram, morphometry and texture parameters and their automatic recognition on the basis of support vectors method significantly minimize the influence of subjective factors and make the results of such analysis reproducible in different radiology departments. The method of calculating the index of bone metastases based on CAD-analysis can be useful in cancer therapy for dynamic monitoring of patients with bone metastases.