A review of methods for quantitative evaluation of axial vertebral rotation

Abstract

Quantitative evaluation of axial vertebral rotation is essential for the determination of reference values in normal and pathological conditions and for understanding the mechanisms of the progression of spinal deformities. However, routine quantitative evaluation of axial vertebral rotation is difficult and error-prone due to the limitations of the observer, characteristics of the observed vertebral anatomy and specific imaging properties. The scope of this paper is to review the existing methods for quantitative evaluation of axial vertebral rotation from medical images along with all relevant publications, which may provide a valuable resource for studying the existing methods or developing new methods and evaluation strategies. The reviewed methods are divided into the methods for evaluation of axial vertebral rotation in 2D images and the methods for evaluation of axial vertebral rotation in 3D images. Key evaluation issues and future considerations, supported by the results of the overview, are also discussed.

Fig. 1

Evaluation of axial vertebral rotation in 2D images. a Cobb method [20]. b Nash–Moe method [64]. c Fait–Janovec method [33]. d Coetsier et al. method [21]. e Perdriolle method [71]. f Bunnell method [16]. g Monji–Koreska method [63]. h Drerup method [25, 26]. i Stokes et al. method [85]

Fig. 2

Evaluation of axial vertebral rotation in 3D images. a Biplanar orthogonal radiographic reconstruction method [15, 59, 70]. b Aaro–Dahlborn method [1]. c Ho et al. method [44]. d Krismer et al. method [50]. e Göçen et al. method [38]. f Haughton et al. method [41]. g Adam–Askin, method [2]. h Kouwenhoven et al. method [48]. i Vrtovec et al. CT method [90]. j Vrtovec et al. MR method [91]. k Vrtovec et al. CT and MR method [92]

Fig. 3

Summary of the reviewed methods. a The number of manual methods (degree of automation 1 & 2) versus the number of automated methods (degree of automation 3 & 4). b A timeline showing the cumulative number of the proposed manual (degree of automation 1 & 2) and automated methods (degree of automation 3 & 4)