Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38951574›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2024

Automated detection, labelling and radiological grading of clinical spinal MRIs.

Rhydian Windsor, Amir Jamaludin, Timor Kadir, Andrew Zisserman

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
16citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Are current machine learning applications comparable to radiologist classification of degenerate and herniated discs and Modic change? A systematic review and meta-analysis.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2023
    Pooled it
  2. Trial
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. SpineScan: a deep learning model for lumbar spine MRI annotation and Pfirrmann grading assessment.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026
    Article
  6. External validation of SpineNetv2 deep learning system for automated lumbar spine MRI analysis: A multi-pathology diagnostic agreement study.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026
    Article
  7. Article
  8. Development and validation of a deep learning-powered system for multi-version global alignment and proportion score to predict mechanical complications after adult degenerative scoliosis surgery.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Rhydian WindsorVisual Geometry Group, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. rhydian@robots.ox.ac.uk.
Amir JamaludinVisual Geometry Group, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Timor KadirVisual Geometry Group, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Andrew ZissermanVisual Geometry Group, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Funding

EPSRC CDT in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems EP/L015897/1EPSRC programme grant Visual AI EP/T028572/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Spinal magnetic resonance (MR) scans are a vital tool for diagnosing the cause of back pain for many diseases and conditions. However, interpreting clinically useful information from these scans can be challenging, time-consuming and hard to reproduce across different radiologists. In this paper, we alleviate these problems by introducing a multi-stage automated pipeline for analysing spinal MR scans. This pipeline first detects and labels vertebral bodies across several commonly used sequences (e.g. T1w, T2w and STIR) and fields of view (e.g. lumbar, cervical, whole spine). Using these detections it then performs automated diagnosis for several spinal disorders, including intervertebral disc degenerative changes in T1w and T2w lumbar scans, and spinal metastases, cord compression and vertebral fractures. To achieve this, we propose a new method of vertebrae detection and labelling, using vector fields to group together detected vertebral landmarks and a language-modelling inspired beam search to determine the corresponding levels of the detections. We also employ a new transformer-based architecture to perform radiological grading which incorporates context from multiple vertebrae and sequences, as a real radiologist would. The performance of each stage of the pipeline is tested in isolation on several clinical datasets, each consisting of 66 to 421 scans. The outputs are compared to manual annotations of expert radiologists, demonstrating accurate vertebrae detection across a range of scan parameters. Similarly, the model's grading predictions for various types of disc degeneration and detection of spinal metastases closely match those of an expert radiologist. To aid future research, our code and trained models are made publicly available.

Indexed as

Magnetic Resonance ImagingHumansImage Interpretation, Computer-AssistedImage Processing, Computer-AssistedIntervertebral Disc DegenerationSpinal DiseasesSpine

Identifiers

PMID38951574
PMCPMC11217300

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.