A Unified Statistical Approach to Modeling the Shape of Human Hyoid Bones in CT Images
Moo Kwon Chung, Nagesh Adluru, Houri K. Vorperian · arXiv (Cornell University) · 2016
We present a unified statistical approach to modeling 3D anatomical objects extracted from medical images. Due to image acquisition and preprocessing noises, it is expected the imaging data is noisy. Using the Laplace-Beltrami (LB) eigenfunctions, we smooth out noisy data and perform statistical analysis. The method is applied in characterizing the 3D growth pattern of human hyoid bone between ages 0 and 20 obtained from computed tomography (CT). We detected a significant age effect on localized parts of the hyoid bone.