Multi-step process in computer assisted diagnosis of posterior cruciate ligaments

A multi-step methodology resulting in a three-dimensional visualization and construction of feature vector of posterior cruciate ligament is presented. In the first step the location of the posterior cruciate ligament is established using the fuzzy image concept. The fuzzy image concept is based on the entropy measure of fuzziness extended to two dimensions. In order to reduce the area of analysis, the region of interest including the ligament structures is detected. In this case, the fuzzy C-means algorithm with median modification helping to reduce blurred edges was implemented. After finding the region of interest, the fuzzy connectedness procedure was performed. This procedure permitted to extract the ligament structures. On the basis of the extracted posterior cruciate ligament structures, the three-dimensional visualization of this ligament was built and, with the support of experts' knowledge, an appropriate feature vector was constructed and its values assigned for normal and pathological cases. Correct results were obtained for over 88% of 97 cases.