Automated Localization of Vertebra Landmarks in MRI Images

The identification of key landmark points in an MR spine image is an important step for tasks such as vertebra counting. In this paper, we propose a template matching based approach for automatic detection of two key landmark points, namely the second cervical vertebra (C2) and the sacrum from sagittal MR images. The approach is comprised of an approximate localization of vertebral column followed by matching with appropriate templates in order to detect/localize the landmarks. A straightforward extension of the work described here is an automated classification of spine section(s). It also serves as a useful building block for further automatic processing such as extraction of regions of interest for subsequent image processing and also in aiding the counting of vertebra.