Ortelius 800: Radiation Free Scoliosis Assessment

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Hi All,

I recently came across this article in the Spine Journal which may be

of interest to those who are concerned with radiation exposure from x-

rays:

Volume 3, Issue 5 (Supplement), Pages 156-157 (September 2003)

P49. A non-invasive approach for scoliosis assessment

Dubousset , Dror Ovadia , ph Leitner , Bruno Fragniere ,

Rigo and Dalia Dickman

Article outline

Copyright

HYPOTHESIS: To investigate the correlation of spinal deformity

measurements with Ortelius 800 radiation-free system as compared to

the standard radiographic measured Cobb angles. To assess Ortelius

800 clinical value while enabling a significant reduction of X-ray

exposure.

METHODS: One hundred and two patients diagnosed with AIS from three

different medical centers were measured with the Ortelius 800 system

by the same standard protocol. The entire process required an average

of 2 minutes. The Ortelius 800 measurements were correlated with the

standard Cobb angle as measured on routine standing coronal and

sagittal radiographs.

RESULTS: Two hundred and five coronal Cobb angles were measured for

scoliosis with a mean of 18 degrees for thoracic curves and 17.7

degrees for lumbar curves and a median of 17.0 degrees for thoracic

curves and 17 degrees for lumbar curves. Thirty-eight sagittal Cobb

angles were measured with a mean of 36 degrees a median of 34.0

degrees. No statistical difference was found when comparing median

(Fig. 1) of Cobb angles measured by Ortelius800. The Pearson's

correlation coefficient was 0.85 in both the coronal plane and the

sagittal plane (P value of<0.0001) (Fig. 2). The mean difference

between Ortelius800 and radiograph measurements was 0.29 ([95%

confidence interval ( & #8722;0.51; 1.09]). The Wilcoxon signed-ranks

test for matched pairs shows no statistically significant difference

betweeen the two measuring methods (P value=0.651)

DISCUSSION: The golden standard for scoliosis assessment is the

radiograph with Cobb angle measurement. The Ortelius800 provides a

radiation-free method for scoliosis assessment in three planes

(coronal, sagittal, apical) with simultaneous automatic calculation

of the Cobb angle in both coronal and sagittal views.

CONCLUSIONS: The results reveal good correlation between the two

measuring methods in both coronal and sagittal views. Comparison of

results from the three independent sites and six independent

examiners shows no significant difference. We propose the Ortelius

800 as a clinical tool for the routine follow-up measurements of AIS

patients, thus enabling a significant reduction of radiation exposure.