An Automatic Method for Assessing Spiking of Tibial Tubercles Associated with Knee Osteoarthritis

“Tibial spiking has been hypothesized as a feature of early knee osteoarthritis.  . . . .  We [information scientists at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland] study tibial spiking as a feature of early knee osteoarthritis. Additionally, we develop a deep learning based model for detecting tibial spiking from plain radiographs. We collected and graded 913 knee radiographs for tibial spiking. We conducted two experiments: experiments A and B. In experiment A, we compared the subjects with and without tibial spiking using Mann-Whitney U-test. Experiment B consisted of developing and validating an interpretative deep learning based method for predicting tibial spiking. The subjects with tibial spiking had more severe Kellgren-Lawrence grade, medial joint space narrowing, and osteophyte score in the lateral tibial compartment. The developed method achieved an accuracy of 0.869. We find tibial spiking a promising feature in knee osteoarthritis diagnosis. Furthermore, the detection can be automatized.”    MORE

Image Credit:  MDPI.com